THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

NBW  YORK    •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO    •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA.  Li 

TORONTO 


THE    COUNTRY    FAITH 


BY 

FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 

MIHISTEH   OF   CENTRAL    CHUHCH,   CHICAGO 

Author    of    "The    Infinite    Artist,"    "The    Economic    Eden,"    "The 

Land  of  Beginning  Again,"  "God's   Faith  in  Man,"  "The 

Enchanted  Universe,"  "The  Breath  in  the  Winds," 

"The  Soul's  Atlas,"  etc. 


got* 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1922 

All  right*  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES   0*  AMERICA 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 
Set  up  and  printed.    Published  September,  1922. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York.  U.  8.  A. 


TO 

MR.    AND    MRS. 

WILLIAM  H.  MINER 

As  one  lingers  in  this  blessed  place,  the  meaning 
of  Heart's  Delight  Farm  gradually  unfolds  itself. 
Cultivation  of  the  soil  culminates  in  character; 
harnessing  the  forces  of  earth  and  sky  looks  toward 
a  richer  harvest  of  the  heart;  the  "loving  care" 
everywhere  in  evidence  is  for  the  growing  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood.  Thus  are  the  purposes  of 
the  Great  Husbandman — the  Infinite  Farmer — 
being  realized  through  you.  Blessed  are  the  people 
who  are  making  money  make  men !  The  joy  of  the 
Lord  is  theirs  indeed.  May  a  steadily  enlarging 
company  of  joy-makers,  possessing  your  spirit  and 
ideals,  grow  up  in  America!  Such  souls  will  do 
much  toward  solving  our  national  problems,  as  well 
as  become  royal  helpers  in  the  realization  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  Business,  Education, 
and  the  Church — in  a  word,  Christianity  at  work 
— that  is  the  meaning  of  Heart's  Delight  Farm  to 
one  to  whom  you  have  given  and  taught  much. 
You  are  true  disciples  of  "The  Country  Faith," 
and  to  you  I  dedicate  this  volume  in  gratitude  and 
thanksgiving. 

FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 

Heart's  Delight  Farm, 

Chasy,  New  York, 

July  18,  1922. 


13773 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PifiE 

I.  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 1 

II.  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH  (II) 16 

III.  THE  UNPURCHASABLES 30 

IV.  THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION     .  44 
V.  THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA 62 

VI.  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 73 

VII.  SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT 87 

VIII.  THE  THANKFUL  HEART 98 

IX.  THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE 107 

X.  THE  VISION  SPLENDID  118 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

Speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee. — Job  xii.  7. 

ONE  of  man's  most  faithful  teachers  is  the  earth  in 
which  his  physical  nature  is  deeply  rooted.  Always 
the  wise  Earth  Mother  is  signaling  to  her  human  child, 
in  the  hope  that  he  may  hearken  to  her  voice  and 
obey  her  inviolable  laws.  With  a  less  scientific  appre- 
ciation of  his  world,  the  ancient  man  had  a  childlike, 
poetic  appreciation  of  it  which  the  modern  man  can  ill 
afford  to  lose.  In  our  social  disorderliness  we  need 
very  much  to  get  wisdom  from  the  order  and  unhurry- 
ing  haste  of  that  society  of  social  forces  always  at  work 
in  the  physical  universe.  For,  though  a  ceaseless 
struggle  is  going  on  in  Nature,  there  is  a  certain 
quietude  and  harmony  at  her  inmost  centers  which 
are  humanly  contagious.  That  is  one  reason  why  elect 
souls  have  ever  sought  woodland  sanctuaries,  meadowy 
chapels,  and  mountain  cathedrals.  "The  tree,"  says 
James  Lane  Allen,  "throws  out  its  arm  at  you  with 
imploring  tenderness,  with  what  Wordsworth  called 
the  soft  eye-music  of  slow-waving  boughs." 

In  these  treed  and  flowered  spaces  of  unwalled  quiet, 
souls  seek  and  find  a  healing  balm,  meaningful  tran- 
quillity which  restores  to  their  ruffled  intensity  some- 
thing akin  to  Nature's  own  profounder  peace  and 
i 


2  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

majesty.  Somehow  the  coolness  of  the  hills  drops 
cooling  quietness  into  the  heart.  And  were  we  trained 
to  respond  more  wisely  to  Nature's  medicinal  min- 
istry, we  should  graciously  humanize  and  pass  her 
teachings  joyously  along  to  our  fellow-learners  in  the 
school  of  life.  For  whenever  and  wherever  we  speak 
to  the  earth,  it  never  fails  to  teach  us — about  God, 
about  Man,  about  Destiny.  The  author  of  Job  under- 
stood this  and  would  doubtless  sound  a  grand  amen  to 
the  words  of  a  modern  man  and  lover  of  the  universe. 
"How  idle,"  he  says,  "to  choose  a  random  sparkle  here 
or  there,  when  the  indwelling  necessity  plants  the  rose 
of  beauty  on  the  brow  of  chaos,  and  discloses  the  cen- 
tral intention  of  Nature  to  be  harmony  and  joy." 

Therefore,  in  our  study  this  morning,  I  want  you  to 
go  with  me  into  God's  vast  green  and  golden  out-of- 
doors.  Yet  I  do  not  want  us  to  go  alone,  blind,  and 
untaught  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  many  disciples  of  the 
fields  and  woods  and  waters  are  wont  to  do.  Rather, 
I  want  us  to  go  in  the  spirit  of  those  at  the  entrance 
of  whose  farmhouse  the  title-words  of  this  sermon  are 
cut  in  bronze.  One  dew-pearled  morning,  as  the  liberal 
sun  poured  his  light  and  warmth  down  upon  the 
thousands  of  acres  composing  Heart's  Delight  Farm 
yonder  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Champlain,  I  lingered 
before  a  bronze  tablet  and  read  these  words : 

Here  in  the  country's  heart  where  the  grass  is  green, 
Life  is  the  same  sweet  life  it  e'er  hath  been. 
Trust  in  God  still  lives,  and  the  bell  at  morn 
Floats  with  the  thought  of  God  o'er  the  rising  corn. 
God  comes  down  in  the  rain  and  the  crop  grows  tall ; 
This  is  the  Country  Faith — and  the  best  of  all. 

But  in  illustrating  our  theme,  I  want  you  to  journey 
with  me  from  northern  New  York  to  eastern  Kentucky. 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  3 

For  one  beautiful  and  salutary  feature  of  Nature  is 
this:  It  does  not  change  with  changing  sections. 
Nature  calmly  ignores  our  norths  and  souths  and  easts 
and  wests,  our  Americas  and  Europes  and  Asias. 
Nature  cares  not  a  fig  for  our  Republicans  and  Demo- 
crats and  Socialists  and  Bolsheviki;  she  impartially 
flogs  the  last  one  of  us  when  we  break  her  rules,  no 
matter  how  vociferously  we  howl  about  our  partisan- 
ship and  patriotism — which  may  be  the  last  refuge  of 
a  scoundrel,  thought  wise  old  Samuel  Johnson.  Also, 
Nature  laughs  very  loud  at  our  "rising  tide  of  color," 
caring  not  at  all  whether  the  children  suckled  at  her 
breast  are  white,  black,  red,  or  yellow.  Exceedingly 
cosmopolitan,  the  one  true  Democrat,  is  good  old 
Mother  Nature !  She  plays  fair  with  her  many-colored 
children,  but  she  likewise  demands  that  her  many- 
colored  children  play  fair  with  her.  Imagining  that 
they  are  fooling  Nature,  men  and  women,  the  world 
around  and  the  ages  long,  are  stupidly  fooling  them- 
selves. 

For  many  summers  I  have  taken  a  walk  which  has 
added  a  deepening  joy  to  existence.  Out  from  Louisa, 
Kentucky,  there  is  a  hill-path  very  courteous  to  pilgrim 
feet  and  most  obligingly  rewardful  to  seeing  eyes. 
Only,  one  sometimes  feels  that  there  are  not  enough 
eyes  to  take  in  all  the  alluring  things  which  cry  aloud 
to  be  seen!  That  wild  rose,  setting  its  frail  jar  of 
perfume  amid  the  nourishing  roots  of  a  lightning- 
struck,  dying  tree— who  would  cheat  himself  out  of 
just  one  glimpse?  That  cardinal  yonder — who  would 
not  like  several  pairs  of  eyes  for  his  blood-red  suit  and 
a  like  equipment  of  ears  for  his  song?  That  pine- 
crowned  hill — with  trees  which  are  green  the  whole 
year  through,  as  if  to  keep  forever  green  the  memory 


4  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

of  those  whose  dust  sleeps  beneath  their  aromatic, 
harplike,  wind-smitten  branches — who  does  not  like 
to  pause  here  in  mid-June  and  watch  the  universe  go 
by?  That  old  rail  fence,  which  worms  its  way  up  hill 
and  down,  like  a  huge,  weather-bitten  serpent  too  old 
to  crawl — why,  that  fence  shuts  in  the  old  home  with 
its  childhood  dreams  and  loves  and  memories!  Yes; 
that  fence  used  to  seem  so  far  away  to  childish  eyes 
that  it  marked  the  end  of  the  world. 

Well,  there  are  so  many  things  in  the  dear,  sun- 
colored  earth  that  want  to  be  spoken  to!  Yet,  we  must 
hurry  along,  or  we  shall  never  get  to  the  end  of  our 
walk.  So,  as  simple  illustrations  of  the  country  faith, 
I  want  you  to  share  with  me  some  of  the  things  it  was 
my  privilege  to  see.  "The  more  I  think  of  it,"  said 
Ruskin,  "I  find  this  conclusion  more  impressed  upon 
me — that  the  greatest  thing  a  human  soul  ever  does  in 
this  world  is  to  see  something,  and  tell  what  it  saw  in 
a  plain  way."  If  we  honestly  see  and  speak  to  the 
earth,  it  will  luminously  and  inspiringly  teach  us. 


The  first  lesson  from  the  teaching  earth  was  a  set 
of  silent  morning  glory  chimes.  There  they  hung,  the 
three  of  them,  in  their  rich  blue  tower  of  color.  Yet, 
on  looking  more  closely,  I  found  that  two  of  the  three 
bell-shaped  flowers  were  already  fading.  Unequal  to 
the  growing  heat  of  the  sun,  they  were  all  doomed  to 
a  transient  existence.  For  it  is  just  the  nature  of  this 
flower  to  curl  up  and  wither  away  in  the  face  of  the 
sun. 

Looking  at  these  flowers,  faded  and  fading,  somehow 
I  could  not  keep  back  that  wail  of  the  Hebrew  prophet, 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  5 

"0  Israel,"  he  cried,  "thy  goodness  is  like  the  morning 
dew,  that  passeth  early  away."  Now,  it  is  perfectly 
natural  for  the  flower  to  fade  and  for  the  dewdrop  to 
vanish;  but  how  unnatural  that  our  goodness,  too, 
should  be  so  fickle  and  ephemeral!  We  say  it  is  easy 
and  natural  to  be  bad,  so  hard  and  difficult  to  be  good. 
But  is  the  saying  altogether  true?  A  thousand  times, 
no!  It  is  false  to  the  core. 

Studied  wisely  and  with  insight,  the  universe  is 
unquestionably  on  the  side  of  goodness.  Moreover,  it 
proves  that  it  is  not  only  not  easy  to  be  bad,  but,  in 
the  long  run,  the  hardest  and  most  difficult  of  achieve- 
ments. Let  us  honestly  face  this  proposition  for  a 
moment.  Take  the  thoroughly  bad  man;  I  mean  the 
clever,  ingenious,  brilliant  student  of  wickedness,  not 
just  the  stupid,  the  ignorant,  the  brutally  non-moral 
specimen.  Suppose  your  exceedingly  capable  criminal 
invested  the  same  amount  of  ability  in  doing  noble 
deeds  that  he  does  in  doing  ignoble.  Instead  of  being 
a  fugitive  from  justice,  a  prisoner  in  dungeons,  and 
finally  a  subject  for  the  gallows  or  electric  chair,  would 
he  not  be,  on  the  contrary,  a  useful,  moral,  and  reli- 
gious member  of  society?  In  brief,  his  capacity  for 
achieving  bad  things,  if  properly  used,  would  certainly 
carry  him  far  along  the  road  of  honor  and  integrity. 
This  must  be  so,  after  making  due  allowance  for  the 
heredity  and  environment  of  every  efficient  criminal. 
Society  may  be  partial,  unjust,  even  cruel.  But  there 
is  not  a  scintilla  of  partiality  in  the  nature  of  things, 
whose  light  never  failed  to  dazzle  Socrates.  Saying  to 
the  unjust,  "I  will  recompense  you  with  unjustness," 
Nature  likewise  says  to  the  good,  "I  will  make  your 
heart  thrill  to  the  awe  of  goodness."  Wherefore,  says 
Paul,  let  him  that  stole,  steal  no  more,  but  rather 


6  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

work.  Is  this  just  an  honesty-is-the-best-policy  ex- 
hortation? By  no  means!  It  rests  upon  the  founda- 
tions of  morality.  It  is  better  to  work  than  to  steal 
because  man  is  the  citizen  of  an  honest  universe.  If 
tricksters  put  the  same  amount  of  energy  into  honor- 
able schemes  that  they  put  into  dishonorable  ones,  the 
law  of  the  conservation  of  righteousness  would  see  to 
it  that  their  labor  is  not  in  vain. 

0,  little  flower  by  the  June  highway,  thanks  be  to 
thee  for  thy  beauty-blown  message!  Even  thy  fading 
loveliness  has  pointed  to  flowers  of  truth  that  fade  not. 
Not  away  from  the  toil  and  the  fret  and  the  worry,  but 
in  the  toil  and  the  fret  and  the  worry,  thou  hast  taught 
me  to  look  for  the  first  article  of  the  country  faith: 
Goodness  that  makes  each  day  as  fresh  as  silver  drops 
of  dew,  as  deep  as  the  blue  of  your  drooping  petals,  as 
substantial  as  yonder  hilltops  that  sublimely  beckon. 
Is  not  this  the  end  of  the  matter,  and  hath  not  all 
been  heard?  "Fear  God,  and  keep  His  command- 
ments; for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man."  Does  not 
the  truth  of  the  wise  ancient  perfectly  match  the 
truth  of  the  wise  modern — Wordsworth — who,  in 
thinking  of  duty,  exclaims: 

Stern  lawgiver!  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace; 
Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair 
As  is  the  smile  upon  thy  face; 
Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds; 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads; 
Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong; 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  thee,  are 
fresh  and  strong. 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  7 

n 

Yet,  right  there  on  the  climbing  slopes  of  those 
morning-washed  hills,  are  pictures  forever  memorable 
to  the  country-grown  lad.  They  are  spider  webs — 
delicate,  gossamer,  filmy  tents  set  up  over  night.  Who 
would  forget  the  dew-tipped  dawns  pouring  their  floods 
of  gold  from  over  the  Hills  of  Yesteryears?  You  went 
out,  0  barefoot  boy,  through  the  fields  of  morning, 
dashing  the  night-dews  from  the  soft  pink  globes  of 
clover,  whistling  and  singing  just  because  your  mouth 
was  a  kind  of  seolian  harp  and  your  voice  an  instru- 
ment which  Life  borrowed  for  chanting  a  tune  to  its 
own  lyric  loveliness.  Yonder  on  the  hilltop,  knee-deep 
in  clover,  feeds  the  blazed-faced  old  mare.  At  sight  of 
you,  she  begins  to  move  away;  for  the  law  of  associa- 
tion, of  horse  sense,  has  taught  her  that  you  and  the 
plow  waiting  in  yonder  furrow  have  definite  designs 
on  her  comfort  and  energy.  So,  she  wishes  to  elude 
such  an  unelusive  creature,  and  frankly  says  so  by 
promptly  seeking  other  sections  of  the  pasture  field. 

But  where  is  your  bridle,  lad?  Don't  need  one? 
Bareback  and  bridleless  to  the  barn,  eh?  Certainly! 
Old  Beck  understands.  That  running  away — why,  that 
is  just  make-believe,  downright  pretense  and  horse- 
hypocrisy!  She  will  be  waiting  yonder  over  the  brow 
of  the  hill  for  you  to  climb  on  to  her  fat,  round  back 
and  dig  your  heels  into  her  soft,  bulging  sides.  And 
then?  But,  ah,  me!  what  angel  with  a  harp  of  gold 
could  accompany  the  song  of  a  barefoot  boy,  galloping 
across  luscious  fields  of  clover,  glistening  with  the  dew- 
hung  tents  of  ten  thousand  master-workmen,  and  all — 
clover,  spider  webs,  horse,  and  lad — played  upon  by  an 
air  of  coolness  wafted  down  from  the  shores  of  the 


8  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

Infinite  Sea?  Yet,  to  be  concrete,  take  just  a  single 
spider  web.  Let  us  talk  to  that  for  a  little  while.  If 
we  are  wise,  it  will  teach  us  much;  otherwise,  it  will 
have  nothing  to  say ;  for  not  even  Plato  himself  could 
do  much  for  a  quiescent,  lethargic,  closed  mind.  Look- 
ing at  that  spider  web  this  morning  in  June,  I  remem- 
bered reading  many,  many  years  ago  that  the  science 
of  astronomy  could  not  have  reached  its  modern  de- 
velopment were  it  not  for  the  help  afforded  by  this 
marvelous  little  creature,  which  has  found  a  scientific 
Homer  in  the  great  Fabre.  Then  I  began  to  question 
whether  I  had  ever  really  read  a  statement  similar  to 
the  one  just  referred  to.  Perhaps  it  was  only  a  vagrant 
fancy  that  floated  about  in  the  atmosphere  of  my 
being,  ultimately  taking  up  its  home  in  the  cobwebs 
decorating  the  rafters  of  my  brain!  But  the  fancy 
refused  to  be  turned  out  of  doors ;  it  fairly  haunted  me. 
Troubled  by  this  mental  ghost  disturbing  the  waters 
of  my  subconscious  pool,  and  yet  all  the  while  sturdily 
refusing  to  come  out  into  the  open  and  declare  itself,  I 
sat  down  and  wrote  to  Professor  Edward  Emerson 
Barnard,  of  the  great  Yerkes  observatory  at  Williams 
Bay,  Wisconsin,  telling  him  of  my  quandary.  As  you 
know,  Dr.  Barnard  is  one  of  the  foremost  astronomers 
in  the  world.  He  answered  my  question  at  once.  You 
will  see,  from  his  remarkable  letter,  that  my  fancy  was 
hardly  fanciful  enough !  He  says : 

"All  accurate  measurements  made  at  the  telescope, 
and,  indeed,  also  in  measuring  celestial  photographs, 
are  dependent  on  the  spider's  web.  I  might  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  our  knowledge  of  the  dimensions  of  the 
universe  is  due  to  the  humble  spider.  We  measure 
with  its  web  the  positions  and  distances  of  the  stars 
and  the  path  of  the  vagrant  comet.  With  the  spider's 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  9 

web  we  also  measure  the  diameters  of  all  the  celestial 
bodies,  except  the  fixed  stars,  whose  angular  diameters 
are  too  small  for  such  measurements.  It  is  indestruct- 
ible by  the  heat  of  the  sun,  so  that  we  can  measure 
objects  on  the  sun's  surface  by  it.  For  all  these  most 
accurate  measures  of  astronomy,  two  parallel  spider 
webs  (one  only  of  which  is  movable)  are  generally 
used,  stretched  across  two  frames  in  an  instrument 
called  a  filar  micrometer.  It  is  not  that  we  cannot 
make  finer  threads  of  some  other  materials.  Quartz 
fibers  can  be  made  finer  than  a  spider's  web,  but  are 
not  so  satisfactory.  Indeed,  nothing  is  so  satisfactory 
as  the  spider's  web.  So  we  continue  to  use  it." 

My  respect  for  the  spider  has  grown  tremendously 
since  receiving  that  letter  from  this  celebrated  scientist. 
The  next  time  you  women  go  about  the  rooms  of  your 
house  ruthlessly  sweeping  (Mrs.  Shannon  says  that  it 
is  not  in  good  taste  to  even  suggest  such  a  thing,  much 
less  to  say  it  right  out ! )  the  cobwebs  from  the  corners, 
please  do  it  a  bit  more  gently!  I  know  most  of  us  are 
by  the  spiders  as  some  of  us  are  by  the  mice — we  don't 
like  them  in  the  least !  Indeed,  some  of  us,  confirmed 
rheumatics  that  we  are,  can  manage  to  throw  a  flip- 
flop  every  time  a  poor,  innocent,  little  mouse  comes 
playfully  across  the  floor.  Seated  one  night  in  a  coach 
filled  with  passengers,  I  heard  a  brakeman  whisper  in 
my  ears :  "There  it  goes — right  there !  But  don't  say 
anything  about  it;  it  would  cause  a  panic;  we  simply 
cannot  keep  the  little  beasts  off  of  our  trains."  Well, 
as  I  had  been  made  the  unwilling  custodian  of  diplo- 
matic information,  I  did  not  say  one  word  about  that 
hobo  mouse  traveling  in  all  the  luxury  of  a  lightning 
express  train.  Moreover,  I  positively  refuse  to  say 
whether  I  myself  surreptitiously  sought  another  coach, 


10  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

or  whether  I  waited,  with  terror  and  misgiving,  to 
share  the  fate  of  my  unsuspecting  fellow-passengers ! 

Ah,  but  that  little  spider  and  his  wondrous  web !  In 
the  light  of  this  great  man's  letter,  the  heavens  not 
only  declare  the  glory  of  God;  they  declare,  also,  the 
wonder  of  the  meanest  and  most  insignificant  of  his 
creatures.  Speak  to  the  earth,  0  man,  and  it  shall 
teach  thee  the  interdependence  of  the  infinitely  large 
and  the  infinitely  small.  As  the  whole  vast  universe  is 
a  League  of  Relations,  no  wonder  that  mankind  are 
determined  to  have  a  League  of  Nations. 

in 

Furthermore,  as  I  talked  to  the  earth  on  that 
summer  morning,  did  it  not  teach  wondrous  things 
through  the  caterpillar  I  observed  crawling  through 
the  dust  at  my  feet?  Truly,  what  a  creature!  And 
what  colorings — what  gorgeous  dresses  these  creeping, 
gayly-colored  maidens  trail  right  through  the  dirt! 
Nor  are  they  in  the  least  meticulous  as  to  what  happens 
to  their  golden  finery.  And  what  a  career  that  brown, 
black,  yellow  worm  is  doomed  to  follow! 

The  psalmist  speaks  of  the  world  and  man  never 
continuing  in  one  stay;  but  the  same  may  be  truly 
said,  also,  of  the  caterpillar.  As  we  know,  this  mar- 
velous creature  passes  through  four  distinct  stages  of 
development.  The  caterpillar  I  saw  had  come  from 
one  of  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  microscopic  egg 
cells.  Consider  the  prevision  and  foresight — instinc- 
tive, mental,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it — which 
have  been  made  in  depositing  these  tiny  eggs  on  the 
food-plant.  Each  egg  is  placed  on  the  precise  plant 
which  will  best  nourish  the  infant  soon  to  be  born. 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  11 

Moths  even  pluck  hairs  from  their  own  bodies  to  make 
a  nest  for  their  young.  Their  little  ones  are  thus 
concealed  from  enemies  or  protected  from  rigorous 
weather. 

The  second  is  the  larval  or  grub  state.  This  is  the 
time  when,  according  to  LinnaBus,  the  "insect  masks  or 
hides  the  true  character  or  imago  of  the  species."  He 
was  dictating  the  second  chapter  of  his  autobiography 
down  there  in  the  dust  when  I  met  him ;  there  are  still 
two  chapters  to  be  written  before  his  life-history  is 
complete.  It  may  be  well  to  add,  just  here,  that  I  was 
looking  upon  this  suggestive  creature  in  his  most  un- 
attractive period.  Herein  does  he  resemble  the  gawky, 
growing  boy — neither  a  child  nor  a  man — when  nobody 
loves  him  but  God  and  his  mother.  For  the  caterpillar 
has  earned  an  unsavory  reputation.  What  an  appetite 
he  has!  Especially  fond  of  the  food-plants  grown  by 
civilized  man,  he  deliberately  helps  himself  to  them  in 
a  most  uncivilized  fashion.  If  we  extend  our  survey  of 
the  caterpillar  until  it  includes  the  Lepidoptera  family, 
we  shall  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  host  of  ruthless 
destroyers.  Some  years  they  denude  entire  forests  and 
whole  fields  together.  The  Polyphemus  caterpillar, 
according  to  Trouvelot,  weighs  at  birth  only  one- 
twentieth  of  a  grain.  But  his  voracity  is  so  immense 
that  in  fifty  days  he  weighs  207  grains,  and  has  con- 
sumed 120  oak  leaves,  weighing  three-fourths  of  a 
pound. 

Or,  to  take  another  illustration  from  the  same  gen- 
eral field,  in  fifty-six  days  the  silkworm  eats  86,000 
times  its  original  weight.  If  it  were  not  for  the  fact 
that  caterpillars  are  destroyed  by  their  countless  foes, 
they  themselves  would  soon  destroy  the  entire  vege- 
table kingdom,  leaving  not  a  wrack  behind. 


12  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

The  third  stage  is  called  the  pupal  and  usually 
quiescent  stage.  This  is  the  time  when  the  worm  is 
preparing  to  leave  his  wormlike  career.  The  last  work 
he  does  as  a  worm  is  truly  wonderful.  He  makes  his 
cocoon  out  of  silken  threads.  And  what  threads! 
Secreting  a  fluid  by  his  spinning  glands,  the  material 
for  his  silken  couch  is  produced  by  the  hardening  of 
this  fluid.  He  may  make  his  silken  couch  by  winding 
these  threads  round  and  round  himself,  or  he  may  bind 
into  the  cocoon  his  "own  hairs,  chips  of  wood,  or  other 
materials,  or  tie  down  rolled  leaves,  or  form  a  web- 
like  network  hung  like  a  bag  or  a  hammock  from  some 
support,  or  make  a  fuzzy  mass  in  some  crevice  or 
among  leaves  and  twigs."  So,  he  patiently  waits  in 
this  chrysalis  stage  for  the  resurrection  trumpets  to 
sound !  Beginning  as  an  egg,  he  became  a  worm,  and  is 
now  a  pupa;  he  lives  in  hope  of  becoming  a  gorgeous 
butterfly. 

The  fourth  stage  has  arrived  at  last.  Now  does  he 
come  timidly  but  quickly  forth  from  his  chrysalis  case. 
Has  he  not  discovered  a  strange  new  world  indeed? 
From  that  tiny  egg  his  mother  laid  on  the  underside 
of  a  leaf,  he  has  journeyed  up  through  the  wilderness 
of  worm  and  chrysalis  until  he  now  dwells  in  the 
Promised  Land  of  the  Butterfly — a  gorgeous,  golden 
waif  of  the  air!  Emerging  from  his  chrysalis,  he  clings 
for  a  little  while  to  a  rock  or  a  twig,  fanning  his  flaccid 
wings,  thus  injecting  blood  into  them  from  the  thorax 
and  abdomen.  But  not  for  long  does  he  tremble  and 
quiver  on  the  edge  of  his  glorious  new  world.  What 
purple  seas  of  morn  and  silver  lakes  of  noon  and  lus- 
trous oceans  of  evening  are  awaiting  his  unfolding 
wings!  And  now  the  thrilling  moment  has  come!  No 
longer  germ,  worm,  or  pupa,  he  soars  through  the  air,  a 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  13 

kind  of  many-colored  dream  embodied  in  golden  robes 
and  flashing  wings. 

Yet,  in  speaking  to  the  earth  that  I  might  be  taught 
through  that  caterpillar,  did  not  Someone  else  keep 
talking  to  me?  "Beloved,  now  are  we  the  children  of 
God" — these  were  the  very  words  I  continued  hearing 
— "and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be. 
We  know  that,  if  He  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall  be 
like  Him ;  for  we  shall  see  Him  even  as  He  is." 

Is  not  our  own  career  also  marked  by  four  stages? 
Biologically  speaking,  our  bodies  are  fashioned  by  God 
in  wisdom,  awe,  and  mystery.  Whether  from  cell,  egg, 
germ,  spore,  or  seed,  Man,  in  the  Creative  Goodness, 
begins  his  ascent  from  realms  of  majestic  lowliness. 
"Thou  knowest  not  the  way  of  the  Spirit,"  says  the 
writer  of  Ecclesiastes,  "nor  how  the  bones  do  grow  in 
the  womb  of  her  that  is  with  child."  "I  am  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made ! "  exclaims  the  Psalmist.  "Mar- 
velous are  Thy  works,  and  that  my  soul  knoweth  right 
well.  My  substance  was  not  hid  from  Thee,  when  I 
was  made  in  secret,  and  curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest 
parts  of  the  earth.  Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance, 
yet  being  unperfect;  and  in  Thy  book  all  my  members 
were  written,  which  in  continuance  were  fashioned, 
when  as  yet  there  was  none  of  them."  In  his  striking 
book  on  "The  Stages  of  Human  Life,"  Dr.  J.  Lionel 
Taylor  has  a  chapter  called  "Before  the  Beginnings  of 
Being."  Yet,  even  then,  the  Eternal  Evolutionist  was 
marvelously  working  in  secret  and  in  silence.  "In  the 
beginning — GOD!"  That  is  the  proper  way  to  speak 
of  origins,  whether  they  be  earth,  heavens,  universes, 
electrons,  cells,  angels,  or  men.  Before  the  beginnings 
of  being,  there  is  always  the  God  and  Father  of  our 
Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ. 


14  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

Yet,  if  the  creation  of  the  body  is  wonderful,  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  creation  of  the  soul?  Very  little, 
indeed,  because  we  know  nothing  as  to  the  when  or 
how  of  its  creation.  The  four  theories  of  the  genesis 
of  the  soul,  as  stated  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  are  as  follows : 
First,  the  Creationists,  who  hold  that  a  soul  is  created 
by  a  fresh  act  of  God  for  each  new  body.  Second,  the 
Traducianists,  who  hold  that  the  soul  is  engendered  by 
the  parents,  being  transmitted  like  the  bodily  charac- 
teristics. Third,  the  Infusionists,  who  hold  that  the 
soul  preexisted  elsewhere,  but  is  infused  into  the  body 
at  some  given  moment.  Fourth,  the  Transmigration- 
ists,  developing  the  last  doctrine,  who  hold  that  the 
soul,  thus  infused  into  man,  has  previously  inhabited 
the  bodies  of  other  men  or  animals.  Thus  have  think- 
ers striven  to  account  for  the  unaccountable.  Theories 
come  and  go,  but  the  Inscrutable  Fact  abides.  After 
all  is  said,  no  words  outtop  the  grandeur  of  those  writ- 
ten in  Genesis:  "And  God  created  man  in  his  own 
image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He  him" ;  "And  the 
Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and 
breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life;  and  man 
became  a  living  soul."  Whether  man's  physical  body, 
the  temporary  home  of  his  undying  soul,  was  developed 
in  a  long  or  short  time,  in  a  million  years  or  in  a 
moment,  the  whole,  body  and  soul,  is  referred  to  the 
creative  work  of  God.  That  the  process  has  been  an 
exceedingly  long  one  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt.  But 
whether  long  or  short,  the  soul  abides  in  mystery,  and 
the  hour  of  its  awakening  to  self-consciousness  in  the 
body  is  one  of  the  supreme  wonders  of  the  universe. 
Then  do  awful  and  mysterious  forces  begin  to  stir 
within  its  unfathomed  depths.  Here  it  may  enter  that 
endless  period  of  development  in  Christlikeness,  which 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— I  16 

is  the  goal  of  the  worlds.  Having  discovered  its  spirit- 
ual wings,  even  as  the  caterpillar  at  last  unfolds  its 
rainbowed  pinions,  the  soul  begins  its  infinite  career 
in  conscious  fellowship  with  its  God  and  Father. 
"Now,"  it  repeats  in  unison  with  its  companions  and 
pilgrims  of  the  Heavenly  Way,  "are  we  the  children  of 
God;  and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall 
be."  Winging  and  singing  through  the  purifying 
heavens  of  Love,  this  is  the  refrain  of  the  apostolic 
song:  "And  every  one  that  hath  this  hope  on  Him 
purifieth  himself,  even  as  He  is  pure." 

Thanks  to  thee,  0  little  creature  of  the  dust!  You 
are  a  glowing  syllable  in  the  literature  of  the  unde- 
ciphered.  I  shall  always  associate  my  caterpillar  with 
the  lines  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer  on  "The  Butterfly": 

I  hold  you  at  last  in  my  hand, 

Exquisite  child  of  the  air; 
Can  I  ever  understand 

How  you  grew  to  be  so  fair? 

You  came  to  this  linden-tree 

To  taste  its  delicious  sweet, 
I  sitting  here  in  the  shadow  and  shine 

Playing  around  its  feet. 

Now  I  hold  you  fast  in  my  hand, 

You  marvelous  butterfly, 
Till  you  help  me  to  understand 

The  eternal  mystery. 

From  that  creeping  thing  in  the  dust 
To  this  shining  bliss  in  the  blue! 

God,  give  me  courage  to  trust 
I  can  break  my  chrysalis,  too! 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II 

Speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee. — Job  xii.  7. 


GOING  down  the  wooing  ways  of  that  June  morning, 
I  also  met  a  land-tortoise  or  terrapin.  He  was  an  old 
friend.  I  used  to  meet  him  down  on  the  farm.  Some- 
times he  would  crawl  through  the  garden,  the  roadway, 
the  cornfield,  or  under  the  oak  trees  in  the  yard.  But 
he  was  never  very  communicative.  Indeed,  so  bent  is 
he  on  leading  the  life  of  a  recluse  that  he  carries  his 
shell-house  right  along  with  him.  On  human  approach, 
he  retires  into  this  so  quickly  that  he  at  once  classifies 
himself  as  a  most  unsociable  creature.  There  was  a 
saying  extant  among  my  boyhood  friends  that,  once  he 
closed  his  mouth  on  your  finger,  he  would  not  let  go 
until  it  thundered.  I  was  always  careful  never  to  test 
the  truth  of  the  saying  by  experiment. 

But  the  characteristic  of  the  tortoise  which  has 
always  impressed  me  most  is  his  capacity  to  retire  into 
himself.  Wanting  very  much  to  speak  with  him  and 
be  taught  by  him,  yet  he  seemed  determined  to  have  no 
word  with  me.  As  in  other  days  when  I  drew  near,  so 
now  he  silently  shut  the  doors,  pulled  down  the  win- 
dows, drew  the  blinds,  and  swiftly  disappeared  within 
his  striped  and  polished  house  of  shell.  Yet,  hi  his 
abrupt  refusal  to  talk,  did  he  not  teach  me  something 
already  too  well  known  among  my  own  kind? 

16 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  17 

"How  like  the  religion  of  some  folk!"  I  exclaimed  as 
he  slammed  the  door  fairly  in  my  face.  First,  in  the 
matter  of  religious  dress  parade.  Without  trying  to 
force  an  unseemly  parallel,  there  was  an  impressive 
leisureliness  in  the  motion  of  my  friend  tortoise.  When 
I  caught  up  with  him,  he  was  not  in  the  mood  of  hurry 
at  all.  He  just  seemed  to  be  going  nowhere  and  acted 
as  if  he  had  forever  to  reach  his  goal.  Now,  such  an 
attitude  toward  life  and  the  universe  may  be  perfectly 
proper  for  a  tortoise;  but  ah,  me!  what  an  accusing 
type  of  self-photography  it  does  exhibit  in  a  human 
being! 

And  yet,  are  there  not  people  all  around  us  who 
spend  their  time  as  if  life  were  an  idle  stroll?  One 
man  strolls  down  the  dollar-path.  To  be  sure,  as  he 
chases  the  shining  phantom,  he  not  only  spells  motion 
but  commotion.  It  is  not  so  certain,  however,  when 
we  inventory  his  desires,  purposes,  and  ideals,  that  he 
can  possibly  come  to  anything  higher  than  a  lolling 
loafer  in  the  true  highways  of  being.  When  a  man  sets 
a  dollar  mark  on  the  face  of  life,  that  face  begins  to 
make  paralyzing  squints  at  him.  Quickly  enough  does 
he  find  the  cosmos  out  of  focus!  And  all  because,  not- 
withstanding his  strenuous  activity,  he  has  no  proper 
contacts  with  the  life  which  is  life  indeed.  Paradoxical 
though  the  words  be,  the  fact  is:  He  is  an  energetic 
idler  in  the  roadways  of  existence. 

Another  man  follows  the  notoriety  path.  Instead  of 
crying,  "A  kingdom!  A  kingdom  for  a  horse!"  he  sells 
his  years,  his  genius,  his  soul  for  a  name.  Tremen- 
dously active  through  it  all,  he  is  not  one  whit  less  an 
idler  with  reference  to  the  great  and  honorable  and 
unrepealable  verities.  I  asked  after  a  preacher  in  a 
certain  town.  "He  is  still  there  with  the  brass  bells 


18  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

on!"  was  the  reply.  "A  good  name  is  rather  to  rje 
chosen  than  great  riches,"  says  the  proverb ;  but  a  good 
name  seldom  flies  about  with  brass  bells  on.  The 
explorers  for  cheap  fame  do  indeed  find  it,  but  is  it 
worth  the  finding?  Even  though  self-nominated  can- 
didates for  notoriety  are  successful  in  their  verbally 
furious  campaign,  they  are  elected  temporarily  only, 
their  tenure  is  fortunately  brief  and  tragically  inglori- 
ous. God  has  his  own  candidates  for  immortality  and 
noble  renown.  Checked  and  thwarted  in  a  thousand 
ways,  they  invariably  arrive,  but  never  "with  brass 
bells  on!"  Those  horrible,  ear-splitting,  devil-twang- 
ing monstrosities  all  take  on  the  value  of  the  dust-heap 
when  God's  good-named  man,  white  with  the  lilies  of 
grace  and  cool  with  the  airs  of  faith,  comes  calmly  by 
clothed  in  the  robes  of  Christian  righteousness.  "He 
will  not  cry,  nor  lift  up  his  voice,  nor  cause  it  to  be 
heard  in  the  street."  And  why?  "Behold,  I  have  put 
my  Spirit  upon  him."  Oh,  yes,  the  world  will  brazenly 
hang  brass  bells  upon  us  for  so  much  "per" ;  but  that 
Spirit  upon  Whom  the  universe  momentarily  depends 
— He  alone  can  put  the  secret  of  eternal  life  upon  our 
undying  souls.  What  a  terrible  irony  to  be  a  loafer  in 
the  midst  of  terrific  endeavor!  Yet,  in  the  white  light 
of  the  nature  of  things,  this  is  the  doom  of  the  dawdler. 
This  is  the  law  which  operates  impartially  toward 
prince  and  peasant ;  for — 

Kings  must  lay  gold  circlets  down 

In  God's  sepulchral  ante-rooms, 
The  wear  of  Heaven's  the  thorny  crown: 

He  paves  His  temples  with  their  tombs. 

O  our  towered  altitudes! 
0  the  lusters  of  our  thrones! 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  19 

What!  old  Time  shall  have  his  moods 
Like  Caesars  and  Napoleons; 

Have  his  towers  and  conquerors  forth, 

Till  he,  weary  of  the  toys, 
Put  back  Rameses  in  the  earth 

And  break  his  Ninevehs  and  Troys. 

Do  not  be  a  strenuous  idler — that  was  the  first  mes- 
sage of  the  tortoise.  But  he  gave  me  a  second  fully  as 
important.  Instantly  retiring  into  the  hidden  recesses 
of  his  terrapin  seclusion,  he  reminded  me  of  certain 
human  types  one  meets  every  day.  For  example,  the 
loquacious  mortals  who  talk  about  everything  under 
the  sun  but  the  big  things.  Mention  matters  pertain- 
ing to  the  soul  and  they  shut  up  like  a — shall  I  say  a 
clam?  No;  inasmuch  as  I  was  in  a  fragrant  country 
lane  and  far  from  the  surging  sea,  I  will  still  cling  to  my 
tortoise  friend  and  his  facile  genius  for  running  into 
the  house  and  bolting  the  doors. 

Not  otherwise  do  people  act  toward  the  imperial 
subject  of  religion.  They  talk  politics,  industry,  soci- 
ety, markets,  science,  and  novels  with  amazing  frank- 
ness and  ignorance,  their  tongues  often  being  released 
by  the  motive  power  named  their  prejudiced  viewpoint 
or  selfish  animus.  But  religion — God,  Freedom,  Im- 
mortality— never  a  syllable,  save  the  sphinxlike, 
inarticulate  mystery  in  which  the  whole  subject  seems 
to  be  conventionally  wrapped.  Not  always,  of  course, 
is  this  so,  but  generally.  The  bill  of  exceptions  is 
usually  filed  by  that  glib,  superficial,  cult-mongering 
individual,  who  has  his  physical  being  in  countless 
areas  from  Maine  to  California;  whose  mental  longi- 
tudes stretch  all  the  way  from  Boston  to  Baalbek; 
whose  spiritual  latitudes  are  as  wide  as  the  spaces 


20  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

measured  by  the  desert  of  Sahara  and  as  correspond- 
ingly dry. 

Why  should  this  be?  Must  men  and  women  always 
escape  from  themselves  through  avenues  of  conven- 
tional prattle?  Were  the  brain,  the  mouth,  the  lungs, 
and  the  atmosphere  created  for  emitting  vapid,  mean- 
ingless sounds  only?  Why  should  one  lease  his  tongue 
to  verbal  renters  who  pay  in  coppers  of  nonsensical 
weariness,  when  he  may  hire  it  to  desirable  home- 
makers  whose  returns  are  inspiringly  fruitful  words — 
veritable  "apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver"?  Why, 
the  thing  is  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord 
and  a  fraud  perpetrated  against  the  soul  itself.  Are 
we  so  dead,  my  brothers,  that  stocks  are  live  talk  while 
souls  are  dry-as-dust  nonentities?  Must  we  always  be 
in  the  receiving  line  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fad  and  their 
silly  progeny,  and  rarely  or  never  at  home  to  God  and 
His  Way  with  the  soul — the  pursuing  and  redeeming 
Christ? 

Two  very  practical  considerations  should  scourge  us 
out  of  this  terrapin-like  attitude  toward  religious  final- 
ity. The  first  is  its  stark  unnaturalness.  We  are 
plainly  abnormal  when  we  ignore  the  rights  of  the  soul. 
Every  human  being  who  vitally  comes  to  himself  bears 
witness  to  this  truth.  "How  did  I  ever  play  the  fool, 
and  so  stupidly?"  That  is  one  of  the  first  questions 
invariably  asked  by  the  clever  man  who  has  existed  at 
the  circumference  of  being  and  then  been  mysteriously' 
moved  in  toward  the  glowing  center  of  life.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  this  is  the  feeling  of  all  those  new- 
born souls  cited  by  Professor  James  in  his  classic  work. 
There  is  the  sense  of  smiting  wonder  that  they  did  not 
make  contact  with  God  very  much  sooner  than  they 
did.  One  of  the  memorable  cases  is  Benvenuto  Cellini. 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  21 

Soldier,  sculptor,  worker  in  gold  and  silver,  he  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  imprisoned  in  the  Castle  of  Saint 
Angelo.  The  place  was  horrible  beyond  description. 
Rats,  vermin,  dampness,  and  cold  are  his  grim  com- 
panions. But  in  that  dungeon  he  begins  to  think  of 
God;  in  his  den  of  squalor  he  has  visions  of  a  new 
universe.  During  one  hour  in  the  twenty-four  a  shaft 
of  light  plays  over  his  gloom  and  doom.  Getting  a 
Bible,  he  reads  it  during  that  single  hour  when  the 
daylight  shone  into  his  cell.  Soon  religious  visions 
come  to  the  birth;  he  writes  hymns;  he  sings  psalms 
like  a  human  nightingale  pouring  forth  his  music  in 
the  dark.  Thinking  of  the  morrow,  and  of  the  festivi- 
ties which  Rome  will  then  observe,  he  says  to  himself: 
"All  these  years  past  I  celebrated  this  holiday  with  the 
vanities  of  the  world :  from  this  year  henceforth  I  will 
do  it  with  the  divinity  of  God.  And  then  I  said  to 
myself,  '0,  how  much  more  happy  I  am  for  this  present 
life  of  mine  than  for  all  those  things  remembered.'  " 

What  a  commentary  on  "the  buried  life"  of  us  all! 
True,  we  are  born  a  long  way  from  our  deeper  selves. 
But  the  tragedy  is  that  we  are  content  to  remain  buried 
beneath  our  mountains  of  mud,  or  else  we  make  but 
wan  and  feeble  efforts  to  set  our  souls  within  the 
cleansing  tides  of  life  that  would  bear  us  achievingly 
and  triumphantly  toward  the  Harbor  of  Home  and  its 
ever-deepening  hospitality.  In  the  true  sense,  it  is 
abnormal  and  unnatural  for  men  not  to  be  spiritual 
and  Christlike,  because  they  are  essentially  spirits 
destined  for  careers  in  growing  Christlikeness.  As  the 
telescope  and  photography  yield  the  astronomer  new 
depths  of  space  sown  with  blazing  worlds,  so  do  spirit- 
ualized souls  exhibit  the  deeper  depths  of  reality  await- 
ing exploration  by  the  sons  of  God.  That  veteran  of 


22  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

the  spiritual  wars,  that  vernal  old  man  who  comes 
with  songs  of  joy  and  shouts  of  victory  to  the  dawn 
of  heavenly  mornings,  after  recounting  his  gains  and 
losses,  after  speaking  of  achievements  and  progress 
which  would  dazzle  ordinary  folk,  utters  this  extraor- 
dinary and  sublime  disclaimer.  "Not  that  I  have 
already  obtained,"  says  Paul,  from  a  prison  that  out- 
splendors  the  Golden  House  of  Nero,  "or  am  already 
made  perfect:  but  I  press  on,  if  so  be  that  I  may  lay 
hold  on  that  for  which  also  I  was  laid  hold  on  by  Christ 
Jesus.  Brethren" — hear  him  call  as  he  spiritually  eyes 
the  race-course  of  infinity  and  inbreathes  new  inspira- 
tions for  his  mounting  resolution — "I  count  not  myself 
yet  to  have  laid  hold :  but  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  the 
things  which  are  behind,  and  stretching  forward  to  the 
things  which  are  before,  I  press  on  toward  the  goal 
unto  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus."  Oh,  the  challenge  of  it!  The  mental  sinewi- 
ness  of  it!  The  white-hot  concentration  of  it!  The 
soul-athleticism  of  it!  The  magnificent,  forthright 
heavenliness  of  it!  Paul  never  whined  about  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  universe.  He  rejoiced  so  exultantly  in  be- 
ing possessed  by  eternal  life  that  he  felt  the  vastness 
of  the  universe  would  have  to  become  eternally  vaster 
in  order  to  furnish  him  a  field  in  which  to  put  forth  the 
vigors  and  powers  and  purposes  he  had  realized  in 
Christ  Jesus  his  Lord.  Winged  souls  are  not  greatly 
perturbed  by  either  infinite  wastes  of  matter  or  infinite 
voids  of  space. 

The  second  consideration  is:  The  very  abnormal- 
ness  of  a  godless  life  is  accentuated  by  the  spiritual 
majesty  of  Jesus.  Our  Lord  did  not  walk  straight  into 
the  teeth  of  things  with  sugar-coated  condiments  of 
delusion,  as  much  of  our  soft-headed  modern  morality 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  23 

and  mentality  jejunely  avers.  Nevertheless,  He  did 
unbosom  the  Heart  of  Things,  and  He  found  It  fair — 
wondrously  fair  and  just  and  good.  Behind  all  the 
terror  of  a  universe  in  the  making,  Christ  beheld  the 
glory  of  the  Shining  Face.  That  Face  is  unutterably 
paternal;  it  has  the  two  eyes  of  Fatherhood  and 
Motherhood  marvelously  blended.  When  Jesus  said, 
"My  Father,"  "Our  Father,"  "Your  Father,"  the  music 
of  the  spheres  took  on  new  color-tones.  Therefore,  our 
little  planet,  lying  like  a  pearl  along  the  seashore  of 
infinity,  gleamed  before  Him  in  immeasurable  worth 
and  beauty.  Soiled  as  earth  is  by  sin,  yet  does  He  see 
the  unquenched  fires  of  loveliness  and  awe  burning 
through  its  hidden  depths.  Everywhere  Christ's  vision 
of  God  is  equal  to  the  fact  of  God.  No  matter  what 
long  journeys  He  had  made  from  the  deeps  of  Godhead 
in  quest  of  our  humanity,  on  every  hand  Jesus  found 
tokens  of  Divinity  in  the  very  world  which  chose  to 
make  Him  a  stranger  and  a  felon  rather  than  its  Savior 
and  Deliverer. 


Nor  must  I  forget  Mother  Hen,  who  greeted  me  by 
the  roadside.  She  had  a  brood  of  fourteen  chickens, 
As  I  undertook  to  count  them,  flitting  about  here  and 
there,  I  was  reminded  of  that  delicious  saying  of  Pro- 
fessor William  Lyon  Phelps:  "In  arithmetic  I  was 
always  slow,  but  never  sure!"  With  her  large  family 
to  look  after,  she  was  as  busy  as  a  woman  in  house- 
cleaning  time.  Yet  my  colored  friend  and  philosopher, 
John  Pickerell,  always  said  that  a  hen  with  one  chicken 
makes  more  fuss  than  a  hen  with  a  dozen.  At  any 
rate,  this  is  often  true  of  the  home  having  only  one 


24  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

child.  The  unfortunate  feature  is  that  both  parents 
and  child  are  frequently  spoiled. 

But  is  not  that  hen  with  her  brood  a  concrete  illus- 
tration of  the  Motherhood  tenderly  and  watchfully 
fluttering  throughout  the  whole  creation?  One  of  the 
grandest  strains  struck  from  the  Isaian  harp  celebrates 
the  Divine  Motherhood  nestling  within  the  sanctuaries 
of  the  universe.  Speaking  of  Zion,  disheartened  and 
discredited  by  her  own  wickedness,  God  says  through 
His  prophet:  "Ye  shall  be  borne  upon  the  side,  and 
shall  be  dandled  upon  the  knees.  As  one  whom  his 
mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort  you."  Borne — 
dandled — comforted !  What  caressing  words  are  these ! 
See  that  mother  who  carries  her  child  on  her  hip,  one 
arm  gently  holding  the  little  one  in  position;  see  her 
fondly  moving  her  child  up  and  down  on  her  knees; 
see  her  comforting  her  fretful,  ill,  or  mistreated  babe ! 
These  are  the  three  pictures  which  the  prophet  employs 
to  declare  the  brooding  maternity  in  the  nature  of 
God.  "As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth."  But 
how  does  a  mother  comfort?  Only  two  people  can 
answer.  First,  the  comforted  child,  and,  second,  the 
comforting  mother.  After  all  terms  of  endearment  are 
exhausted,  after  all  fond  and  wooing  words  are  spoken, 
these  two — the  comforted  child  and  the  comforting 
mother — alone  know  the  sweetness  which  flows  from 
"the  breasts  of  her  consolations." 

But  to  return  to  the  teaching  earth  as  it  spoke  to  me 
through  that  hen  and  her  brood.  Did  not  our  Lord  and 
Master  go  to  the  mother  hen  for  His  figure  of  the 
rebellious  city  which  broke  His  heart  and  then  crucified 
Him?  "0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  that  killeth  the 
prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are  sent  unto  her! 
how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together, 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  25 

even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  own  brood  under  her 
wings,  and  ye  would  not!  Behold,  your  house  is  left 
unto  you  desolate :  and  I  say  unto  you,  ye  shall  not  see 
me,  until  ye  shall  say,  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord."  Once  it  was  my  privilege  to  see 
the  reality  of  the  Master's  figure  enacted  in  a  striking 
manner.  I  was  driving  an  automobile  through  central 
Kentucky.  Rounding  a  sharp  curve  in  the  road,  I  saw 
a  mother  hen  with  one  chick  immediately  in  front  of 
me.  At  the  approach  of  the  car,  she  worked  furiously 
and  with  all  the  redemptive  passion  of  motherhood  to 
get  her  child  out  of  danger.  But  she  failed.  Then  I 
witnessed  something  I  shall  remember  as  long  as  mem- 
ory endures.  After  frantically  trying  and  failing,  she 
did  that  which  only  the  sacrificial  love  and  intelligence 
of  motherhood  is  capable  of  doing.  She  instantly  sat 
down  on  her  chick!  By  the  help  of  God,  as  I  think,  I 
managed  to  so  steer  the  car  that  that  feathered  mother 
and  her  wing-protected  child  were  not  injured.  Rarely 
have  I  been  so  thrilled  and  excited  in  my  life.  Of 
course  the  hen  was  considerably  frustrated  for  the 
moment.  But  she  soon  recovered  her  motherly  poise 
and  went  on  about  her  out-of-doors  housekeeping  as  if 
nothing  had  happened. 

As  if  nothing  had  happened,  did  I  say?  But  this 
unutterably  glorious  Something  is  ever  at  work 
throughout  the  universe.  Have  you  considered  that 
behind  the  struggle  for  existence  there  is  the  Spirit  of 
sacrificial  motherhood  which  makes  for  universal  sub- 
sistence? I  watched  a  battle-royal  between  blackbirds 
and  sparrows  over  the  possession  of  a  birdhouse.  Now 
bird  nature,  like  human  nature,  is  not  at  its  best  in  a 
towering  rage.  Yet,  as  I  watched  those  birds,  it  dawned 
upon  me  for  the  first  time  that  something  wondrously 


26  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

sacred  was  at  stake  in  their  contest.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  Motherhood  itself!  Behind  those  chattering 
blackbirds  and  quarreling  sparrows,  even  through  their 
obstreperous  behavior,  Motherhood  was  getting  its 
valiant  vindication  and  immortal  self-assertion.  And 
is  not  Motherhood,  whether  in  birds  or  humans,  infi- 
nitely greater  than  any  individual  or  collective  mani- 
festation thereof?  When  Zion  wailed:  "The  Lord 
hath  forsaken  me,  and  the  Lord  hath  forgotten  me," 
God  asked:  "Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child, 
that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her 
womb?"  This  is  both  possible  and  probable,  as  experi- 
ence sKbws.  Yet,  from  in  behind  even  this,  here  is  the 
Voice  that  echoes  the  golden  heart  of  Godhood:  "Yea, 
these  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee."  Oh, 
speak  to  the  Motherhood  everywhere  brooding  and 
dreaming  and  singing  through  the  earth,  and  it  shall 
teach  thee  of  the  Godhead  out  of  Whom  all  father- 
hoods and  motherhoods  mysteriously  and  continuously 
come! 

m 

On  my  return  trip,  I  came  across  one  of  the  most 
interesting  creatures  in  all  the  world.  Walking  through 
a  sylvan  way  overarched  by  gnarled  and  widespreading 
oaks,  I  saw  a  boy  standing  yonder  in  the  distance, 
Soon  I  heard  his  voice  calling:  "Hey,  Bud!"  Little 
thinking  he  was  addressing  me,  I  kept  on  walking 
toward  him,  but  made  no  answer.  All  the  more  vocif- 
erously did  he  continue  yelling:  "Hey,  Bud!  Hey, 
Bud!"  At  last  it  dawned  upon  me  that  I  was  the 
object  of  his  exclamations.  I  asked,  as  I  approached 
him:  "What  do  you  want,  boy?"  "I  want  to  know  the 
way  to  town,"  was  his  quick  reply.  It  seems  that  he 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  27 

and  his  companion  had  gone  out  of  the  main  highway 
and  down  over  the  side  of  the  hill,  picking  blackberries. 
Coming  back  to  the  road,  but  now  separated  from  his 
companion,  he  had  "got  turned  around,"  as  we  say,  and 
lost  his  sense  of  direction.  As  we  walked  along  to- 
gether, I  asked,  after  telling  him  the  right  way  home: 
"But  how  do  you  know  that  you  are  on  the  right  road 
now?"  "Gee  whiz!"  he  exclaimed.  "Didn't  you  say 
that  this  is  the  road?"  "Yes,"  I  countered,  "but  how 
do  you  know  that  I  am  telling  you  the  truth?"  There 
was  a  puzzled  look  in  his  eye — a  curious  twinkle — but 
only  for  a  moment.  "By  gum!"  he  said,  "I'm  going  to 
trust  you,  anyway!" 

Had  I  seen  or  heard  anything  that  June  morning 
quite  as  fine  and  clean  and  beautiful  as  the  brave  and 
eloquent  trust  of  that  lad  among  the  hills?  I  think  of 
the  loveliness  of  my  morning  glories ;  of  the  wonder  of 
my  spider  web;  of  the  prophecy  of  my  caterpillar;  of 
the  suggestiveness  of  my  tortoise;  of  the  energetic 
motherliness  of  my  hen.  And  yet,  as  I  think  of  that 
barefoot  boy,  with  his  innocent  Junetide  face,  torn 
shirt,  ripped  trousers,  and  noble  confidence,  I  know 
that  I  have  reached  the  highest  note  struck  from  the 
harp  of  nature.  Moreover,  all  the  men  who  have  lived 
and  died  were  once  boys.  Are  we  not  tempted  to  forget 
this  fact?  That  philosopher  was  a  boy  long  before  he 
went  to  dwell  in  Platoland.  That  composer  was  a  boy 
before  he  moved  into  the  realm  of  Beethoven  melodies. 
That  architect  was  a  boy  before  he  lifted  himself  and 
St.  Peter's  into  heights  of  fame.  That  teacher  was  a 
boy  before  he  laid  the  shaping  hand  of  Horace  Mann 
upon  the  educational  world.  That  preacher  was  a  boy, 
hunting  rabbits  and  watching  bluebirds  in  the  fields  of 
Litchfield,  long  before  Henry  Ward  Beecher  came  to 


28  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

sway  the  multitudes.  That  biologist  was  a  boy  before 
Charles  Darwin  gave  to  mankind  the  great  concept  that 
evolution  is  God's  way  of  doing  things.  I  like  not  this 
far  fame  of  the  men  which  makes  us  forget  their  child- 
hood. For  childhood  is  the  one  point  between  the 
eternities  hi  which  human  life  is  free  of  responsibility. 
It  is  the  breathing  time,  ordained  of  God,  for  men  and 
women  to  get  a  good  start  up  the  Hills  of  Destiny. 
Therefore,  it  is  the  period  in  which  society  should  be 
most  vitally  concerned.  The  world  of  to-morrow  is 
being  made  by  the  childhood  of  to-day.  And  no  gen- 
eration, it  is  safe  to  predict,  ever  had  harder  problems 
to  solve  than  will  the  one  now  in  its  barefoot  stage. 

Furthermore,  did  not  my  Little  Seer  of  the  Hills  lay 
the  heart  of  the  matter  wide  open  when  he  said :  "I'm 
going  to  trust  you,  anyway"?  Go  where  you  will,  trust 
is  the  secret  of  the  growing  soul.  Look  where  you 
please,  the  need  of  trust  shall  greet  you.  Trust  makes 
society  possible,  and  trust  alone.  Your  railroads,  your 
commerce,  your  banks,  your  courts,  your  schools,  your 
homes,  your  churches — all  are  possible  only  through 
trust.  Cut  the  artery  of  trust  and  society  bleeds  to 
death.  Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  trust  plays  so 
large  a  part  in  religion?  Why,  when  men  and  women 
wisely  learn  to  trust  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord 
and  Savior,  as  they  too  often  blindly  and  unwisely 
trust  each  other,  they  will  open  such  channels  of  power 
from  the  fountains  of  heaven  to  the  heart  of  mankind, 
that  wars  shall  cease,  disease  shall  be  banished,  hatreds 
shall  die,  injustice  shall  disappear,  while  righteousness, 
brotherhood,  mercy,  and  truth  shall  cover  the  earth  as 
the  waters  cover  the  sea. 

Thanks  to  thee,  0  Little  Pilgrim  of  the  Hills  and 
Merchantman  of  the  Blackberry  Fields!  Good  Mother 


THE  COUNTRY  FAITH— II  29 

Earth,  as  I  spoke  to  her  by  the  way,  taught  me  much, 
but  thou  hast  been  the  wisest  teacher  of  all.  Thy 
manly  voice  is  a  true  accent  of  the  Voice  Divine  and 
Eternal :  "Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace,  whose 
mind  is  stayed  on  Thee,  because  he  trusteth  in  Thee." 

How  does  the  rivulet  find  its  way? 
How  does  the  floweret  know  its  day 
And  open  its  cup  to  catch  the  ray? 

I  see  the  germ  to  the  sunlight  reach, 

And  the  nestling  knows  the  old  bird's  speech. 

I  do  not  know  who  is  there  to  teach. 

I  see  the  hare  through  the  thicket  glide, 

And  the  stars  through  the  trackless  spaces  ride. 

I  do  not  see  who  is  there  to  guide. 

He  is  eyes  for  all,  who  is  eyes  for  the  mole, 
See  motion  goes  to  the  rightful  goal. 
0  God!    I  can  trust  for  the  human  soul. 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES 

And  he  gave  heed  unto  them,  expecting  to  receive  some- 
thing from  them.  But  Peter  said,  Silver  and  gold  have 
I  none;  but  what  I  have,  that  give  I  thee.  In  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  walk. — Acts  iii.  5,  6. 

IT  is  a  thrilling  moment  in  the  lives  of  both  the 
beggar  and  Peter.  One  has  already  seen  the  universe 
with  new  eyes.  Yesterday  Peter's  soul-faculties  were 
afflicted  with  a  lameness  as  dire  as  the  beggar's  lifelong 
physical  infirmity.  But  to-day  things  are  changed ;  the 
world  wears  a  new  face;  men  are  no  longer  an  inco- 
herent mob,  but  each  individual  stands  forth  clothed 
in  divinely  glistering  raiment.  The  reason  for  this 
changed  complexion  of  things  is  due,  of  course,  to  a 
radical  change  in  Peter  himself.  Christ  has  crossed 
his  path;  Christ  has  arrested  this  impetuous  man; 
Christ  has  touched  him  to  spiritual  fineness,  and  the 
celestial  strain  is  vigorously  at  work;  Christ  has  at 
last  enthroned  Himself  in  the  deepmost  centers  of 
Simon's  being.  And  Simon  is  vanishing  like  fog  before 
the  onrushing  light  of  noonday,  while  Peter  is  rising 
like  the  sun  when  dawn  tinges  the  east  with  gray  and 
says:  "This  is  but  a  ripple  of  silver  from  oceanfuls 
of  splendor  and  of  day."  For  Simon  has  lost  his  night 
and  fog  in  the  light  and  clarity  of  the  Christian  morn- 
ing. Even  as  the  earth-man  has  crumbled  the  rock- 
man  has  risen,  uncrumbling  and  sublime,  in  place  of 
that  unstable,  wind-driven  human  dust.  That  tenth- 
30 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  31 

hour  prophecy,  rich  as  the  golden  afternoon  when  it 
was  spoken,  has  come  true:  "Jesus  looked  upon  him 
and  said,  Thou  art  Simon  the  son  of  John:  thou  shalt 
be  called  Cephas  (which  is  by  interpretation,  Peter)." 
Thus  Christ  makes  a  man  of  dust  into  a  soul  of  dia- 
mond! 

But  the  lame  man  was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  rein- 
carnated Saviors  coming  his  way.  All  men  looked  alike 
to  him.  Why  not?  Coming  into  the  world  a  cripple, 
all  his  life  long  he  had  been  a  dependent;  necessity 
made  him  a  beggar  and  despair  made  him  an  unrespon- 
sive outcast.  Viewing  the  world  from  a  pallet  of  straw, 
and  eking  out  a  precarious  existence  through  the  grace 
of  alms,  is  it  any  wonder  that  no  morning  ever  broke 
its  heart  of  gold  over  the  Jerusalem  hills  for  him? 
One  upon  another  the  long,  dreary  days  trod  through 
his  soul  with  iron  feet,  trampling  life  and  hope  and 
the  world  itself  into  a  confused  jargon  of  shrieking 
anarchy. 

But  if  ours  is  a  world  in  which  such  things  are  pos- 
sible, it  is  also  a  world  in  which  undreamed  wonders, 
unimagined  beauties,  unguessed  goodnesses,  unmeas- 
ured riches  are  constantly  surprising  us.  Ask  any  man 
to  open  the  doors  of  his  soul  and  let  you  peep  in,  and 
some  of  the  richest  treasures  therein  seemingly  dropped 
out  of  the  nowhere — unexpected,  undeserved,  unex- 
plained. God's  great  gifts  come  to  us  as  silently  as 
the  twilight,  even  though  they  hue  the  heart  with  the 
glory  of  sunset.  Here  are  questions  men  might  ask 
with  profit:  How  did  the  blessing  of  my  life-work 
come  to  me?  Why  did  I  pick  up  a  certain  book  at  a 
certain  time?  Why  did  God's  vestal  gift  named  a  pure 
woman  cross  my  heart's  threshold  on  such  a  day  and 
hour?  How  did  my  noblest  friendship  begin?  What 


32  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

were  the  circumstances  under  which  I  received  over- 
tures from  the  unseen  God,  then  and  there  took  the 
vows  of  nobler  living,  or  else  had  ever  after  been  guilty 
of  sinning  greatly? 

Were  we  not  lame  enough  indeed  when  these  radiant 
evangels  of  eternity  came  our  way?  And  like  this 
pauper,  perhaps  we  turned  our  hungry,  pleading  eyes 
upon  them,  expecting  to  receive  something — some 
material  gift.  Then  did  God's  unannounced  angel  lift 
the  trumpet  to  his  lips  and  blow  forth  these  resonant 
words :  "Silver  and  gold  have  I  none ;  but  what  I  have, 
that  give  I  thee." 

We  are  to  consider,  then,  some  of  life's  unpurchas- 
able  values,  the  things  which  cannot  be  had  for  silver 
and  gold,  but  which  are  God's  free  gifts  to  men.  For 
it  is  always  true,  as  Mrs.  Browning  said,  that  God's 
gifts  put  man's  best  dreams  to  shame. 


Mastery  of  circumstances,  power  over  environment 
— this  is  one  of  the  ageless  necessities  of  men.  It  is  all 
so  trite,  I  know,  but  it  is  so  desperately  true.  The 
paradoxical  old  saw  reminds  us  that  we  constantly  need 
to  learn  the  things  we  have  known  longest.  And  to 
preside  over  the  setting  of  his  life  with  Christlike  and 
spiritual  kingliness  is  one  of  the  things  man  always 
needs  to  learn,  though  he  knows  it  with  a  kind  of 
theoretical  perfection.  The  philosophy  of  the  subject 
is  stated  in  the  words  of  Emerson :  "Though  we  travel 
the  world  over  in  search  of  the  beautiful,  we  must  carry 
it  with  us,  or  we  find  it  not." 

In  other  words,  beauty  is  not  found  in  things  but 
in  souls;  happiness  is  not  found  in  material  environ- 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  33 

ment,  paltry  or  splendid,  but  in  the  power  of  the  per- 
sonality that  rises  above  it,  that  secretes  a  quality  of 
everlastingness  from  the  reality  upon  which  things 
lean.  The  surroundings  of  the  lame  man  before  the 
beautiful  gate  of  the  temple  were,  in  a  pure  external 
sense,  all  that  any  man  could  ask.  The  majesty  and 
beauty  of  the  temple  were  indescribable.  Outstretched 
wings  of  beaten  splendor  sheltered  him.  All  that 
genius,  silver  and  gold  could  do  had  contrived  for  this 
man's  misery  a  setting  of  superlative  grandeur.  The 
massive  clouds  of  twisted  gold  and  shimmering  bronze 
under  which  he  lay  were  rich  enough  to  drench  his  soul 
with  showers  and  gospels  of  beauty.  But  the  fact  is, 
he  was  a  beggar;  he  was  a  lame  beggar;  he  was  a  lame 
beggar  carried  by  kind  hands  and  placed  where  he 
might  receive  alms  from  temple  worshipers.  Now  he 
might  have  gazed  upon  that  mountain  of  gold  until 
doomsday,  and  had  not  God's  lightnings  of  health  and 
vigor  smitten  him  through,  he  would  have  remained 
just  a  lame  and  impotent  man  in  the  very  heart  of 
loveliness  and  pomp. 

Evidently,  here  is  a  first-century  fact  with  a  twen- 
tieth-century meaning;  or,  rather,  it  is  a  truth  which 
lies  behind  all  centuries.  Men  have  always  cried: 
"Give  us  a  new  set  of  circumstances,  changed  condi- 
tions, a  different  environment,  and  all  will  be  well." 
And  some  men  sincerely  believe  that  such  is  the  case. 
"Give  us  comfortable  houses,  good  wages,  abundant 
food,  ease  and  culture,  and  we  will  be  content,"  they 
say.  Now,  we  all  know  that  there  is  vast  room  for 
improvement  in  each  of  these  directions;  and  every 
Christian  man  rejoices  that  conditions  are  being  bet- 
tered. They  ought  to  be  bettered;  it  is  a  stench  in 
the  nostrils  of  the  Almighty  that  men's  social  and 


34  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

physical  surroundings  are  not  more  congenial,  more 
healthful,  and  more  conducive  to  happiness.  Yet  any 
man  on  speaking  terms  with  human  nature,  or  who 
has  even  a  shallow  knowledge  of  history,  knows  that 
such  a  doctrine  scarcely  scratches  the  surface  of  the 
deep  problems  of  humanity.  And  it  is  because  a  large, 
if  not  indeed  the  largest,  camp  of  socialists  throughout 
the  world  have  taken  for  their  creed  the  materialistic 
motto,  "Let  us  eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow 
we  die,"  that  a  great  company  of  thoughtful  persons, 
though  in  hearty  sympathy  with  some  of  the  reforms 
it  proposes  to  accomplish,  utterly  refuse  to  ally  them- 
selves with  the  movement,  either  in  its  political  or 
social  phases.  Any  "ism"  that  promises  only  better 
houses  and  lands — essential  as  they  are — but  nothing 
more,  has  preempted  the  death  of  its  soul  to  fatten  its 
body,  and  both  alike  are  ultimately  doomed  to  star- 
vation. 

No;  take  our  lame,  bleeding,  aching,  wonderful 
humanity  and  set  it  down  in  the  midst  of  palaces,  art, 
science,  philosophy,  beauty,  and  it  will  be  a  bedraggled 
beggar  still.  "Such  an  argument  is  false,"  interrupted 
a  socialist  in  a  Chicago  mass-meeting  for  men.  "You 
say  that  sin  is  the  root-trouble  with  men.  It  is  not 
true.  Give  men  a  living  wage,  better  houses  for  their 
children,  opportunities  for  an  education,  and  you  will 
have  infinitely  better  men.  It  is  not  sin,  but  social 
inequality  that  is  wrong  with  the  world."  "My  friend," 
replied  the  Christian  minister,  who  was  addressing  the 
meeting,  "men  ought  to  have  better  wages,  better 
houses,  and  better  opportunities  educationally.  But  I 
still  maintain  that  my  proposition  is  true — deliberate, 
willful,  persistent  sin  against  God  and  themselves  is 
the  root-wrong  with  men.  You  say  that  possessing 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  35 

things  will  make  infinitely  better  men.  Let  me  give 
a  concrete  illustration  showing  the  falseness  of  your 
attitude.  There  are  in  Chicago  many,  many  million- 
aires. They  have  art;  they  have  culture;  they  have 
palaces;  they  have  leisure;  they  have  everything  that 
wealth  can  give.  But  that  a  majority  of  them  are  dis- 
tinguished for  saintliness,  or  are  the  infinitely  better 
men  which  you  say  are  produced  by  wealth  and  culture, 
not  even  the  most  deluded  materialistic  socialist  could 
show  by  investigating  their  private  and  public  life, 
man  by  man." 

The  Tightness  of  the  minister  is  self-evident.  If  men 
are  unredeemed,  without  God  and  without  hope  in 
the  world,  their  unmedicated  spiritual  pang  will  make 
them  writhe  in  agonies  of  despair.  On  the  contrary, 
if  they  receive  the  impregnating,  overshadowing  power 
of  the  Highest  into  their  hungry  souls,  their  passionate 
cry  for  the  eternal  will  be  satisfied  by  the  living  God. 
Then  do  palaces  become  more  palatial  because  new 
souls  live  within  them;  then  do  cottages  have  roofs 
as  ample  as  the  stars  because  their  owners  have  real 
estate  more  durable  than  worlds;  and  even  garrets 
and  dungeons  do  flame,  as  they  have  ever  done  when 
Christ  indwelt  men's  souls,  like  hills  of  ruby  smitten 
by  many  suns ! 

The  simple  truth  is,  the  Christian  God  answers  men's 
prayers  for  better  things — and  surely  He  has  given  men 
all  things  richly  to  enjoy — by  giving  them  power  to 
make  cleaner,  better  souls.  Men  know  they  are  no 
better  because  of  mere  things ;  does  God  know  less  than 
man  in  these  high  matters?  Surely  not!  God  knows 
what  Christ-begotten  men  are  capable  of,  and  has  fur- 
nished innumerable  examples.  Paul  lay  on  the  floor 
of  his  dungeon  and  wrote  letters  beautiful  and  strong 


36  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

and  lustrous  enough  to  have  been  dictated  in  the  draw- 
ing-rooms of  sundown.  But  within  Paul's  dungeon  was 
Paul's  Christ.  John  stood  on  a  lonely  island  and  saw 
visions  of  a  city  so  fair  that  its  walls  and  gates  and 
streets  blazed  like  jeweled  masonry.  But  on  John's 
lonely  island  was  John's  Christ. 

Wordsworth  confessed  that  there  was  something  in 
the  madness  of  William  Blake  that  interested  him  more 
than  the  sanity  of  Lord  Byron  and  Walter  Scott. 
Somewhere  in  an  unmarked  grave,  Blake's  dust  mingles 
with  that  of  seven  others.  But,  like  Goethe,  Blake  did 
not  allow  a  grave  to  impose  upon  him,  Living  in  a 
poor  cottage,  he  wrote:  "Heaven  opens  here;  on  all 
sides  her  golden  gates;  her  windows  are  not  obscured 
by  vapors;  voices  of  the  celestial  inhabitants  are  more 
distinctly  heard  and  their  forms  more  distinctly  seen; 
and  my  cottage  is  also  a  shadow  of  their  houses."  It 
was  this  man  whose  body  lies  in  a  pauper's  grave  who 
clearly  grasped  the  principle  of  the  spiritual  interpre- 
tation of  nature  in  art,  through  the  power  of  the 
imagination  penetrating  to  its  hidden  meaning.  He 
said:  "I  assert  for  myself  that  I  do  not  behold  the 
outward  creation,  and  that  to  me  it  is  hindrance  and 
not  action.  'What/  it  will  be  questioned,  'when  the 
sun  rises  do  you  not  see  a  round  disc  of  fire,  somewhat 
like  a  guinea?'  Oh,  no!  no!  I  see  an  innumerable  com- 
pany of  the  heavenly  host,  crying  Holy,  Holy,  Holy  is 
the  Lord  God  Almighty.  I  question  not  my  corporal 
eye  any  more  than  I  would  question  a  window  con- 
cerning a  sight.  I  look  through  it,  and  not  with  it." 
One  might  be  disposed  to  take  issue  with  some  of 
Blake's  canons  of  art  and  poetic  theories,  but  not  many 
would  question  his  right  to  the  Master's  beatitude: 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart ;  for  they  shall  see  God." 


THE  UKPURCHASABLES  37 

Now,  it  is  the  vision  of  God  in  Christ  that  lends 
man  power  over  his  unfriendly  environment.  Because 
this  is  true,  Tolstoi's  five  conditions  of  happiness  are 
woefully  lacking.  To  be  happy,  he  said,  we  must  keep 
unbroken  the  link  between  man  and  nature;  we  must 
have  intellectual  and  physical  labor;  third,  the  family; 
fourth,  sympathetic  and  unrestricted  intercourse  with 
all  classes  of  men ;  and  the  fifth  condition  of  happiness 
he  names  bodily  health.  To  say  the  least,  the  category 
does  not  do  justice  to  that  great  and  good  man.  What 
are  nature,  and  work,  and  the  family,  and  society,  and 
bodily  health  to  the  man  who  is  not  hi  vital  communion 
with  the  source  of  them  all — the  holy,  loving,  empower- 
ing God?  A  wise  old  ancient  rings  out  his  bitter  answer 
for  multitudes.  He  made  great  works ;  builded  houses  ; 
planted  vineyards,  gardens  and  parks;  made  pools  of 
water;  bought  men-servants  and  maid-servants;  had 
great  possessions ;  gathered  silver  and  gold ;  hired  men- 
singers  and  women-singers.  "So  I  was  great,"  he  says, 
"and  increased  more  than  all  that  were  before  me  in 
Jerusalem ;  also  my  wisdom  remained  with  me."  And 
then  follows  the  biting,  stinging,  withering,  vinegar- 
and-acid  confession:  "So  I  hated  life,  because  the 
work  that  is  wrought  under  the  sun  was  grievous  unto 
me ;  for  all  is  vanity  and  a  striving  after  wind."  Here, 
then,  is  the  stark  result  of  a  godless  soul  and  a  godless 
civilization — hatred  of  life!  "My  daughter  is  a  very 
unhappy  woman" — I  wrote  the  words  down  in  my 
memory  as  they  came  from  lips  of  anguish.  "She  has 
everything  that  heart  could  wish;  husband,  children, 
friends,  gowns,  automobiles ;  yet  she  is  most  unhappy." 
Knowing  the  daughter,  I  asked  inwardly:  "Does  she 
really  have  all  that  the  heart  wishes,  yea,  longs  for — 
God,  Christ,  the  Comforter,  and  the  life  of  sacrificial 


38  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

service  issuing  therefrom?"  God,  and  history,  and 
souls  agree  in  this:  A  life  without  godliness  is  an 
essentially  perverted  life,  and  real  happiness  refuses  to 
come  to  terms  with  godless  men  and  women.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  divinely  imparted  mastery  turns  man's 
physical  unsightliness  into  beauty,  his  things  into  help- 
ful instruments,  because  his  soul-deadness  has  been 
quickened  into  quivering,  palpitant,  spiritual  vitality. 
For— 

As  man  listens,  one  by  one 

Life's  utmost  splendors  blaze  more  nigh; 
Less  inaccessible  the  sun, 

Less  alien  grows  the  sky. 
For  thou  art  native  to  the  spheres, 

And  in  the  courts  of  heaven  art  free, 
And  earnest  in  thy  temporal  ears, 

News  from  eternity. 

II 

Unquestionably,  one  of  the  profoundest  needs  of  to- 
day is  a  definite  faith.  We  moderns  might  well  imitate 
Peter,  and  that  first  disciple  band,  in  this  matter. 
Asked  for  a  roadside  beggar's  gift,  Peter  said  to  the 
lame  man:  "In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth, 
walk."  The  ghost  of  indefiniteness  fairly  haunts  twen- 
tieth century  Christians,  and  we  fear  the  white  monster 
so  much  that  we  are  glad  to  make  terms  with  it.  Folk 
are  surprisingly  eager  to  tell  and  to  be  told  that  the 
true  lifewalk  may  be  enjoyed  in  sundry  names  and 
"isms."  Eddyism,  Russellism,  New  Thoughtism, 
Occultism  are  only  a  few  of  a  whole  brood  of  cackling 
bantams  professing  to  have  been  hatched  in  the  nest 
of  truth.  It  is  indeed  the  day  of  the  fakir,  and  he  is 
industriously  deceiving  large  sections  of  mankind.  To 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  39 

laugh  him  down  by  quoting  Barnum's  aphorism,  which 
he  held  to  be  especially  applicable  to  the  American 
people,  is  to  smile  at  a  tragedy  too  deep  for  tears.  Nor 
is  it  meeting  the  issue  to  say  that  such  cults  carry 
within  themselves  the  seeds  of  self-destruction  and  that 
they  soon  pass  into  nethermost  oblivion. 

But  there  is  a  real  solution  to  the  problem,  and  it  is 
this :  Let  every  Christian  exercise  such  a  clear,  definite, 
specific  faith  in  the  power  of  our  Lord  to  impart  eternal 
life  to  men  here  and  now;  to  fill  them  with  joy  that 
triumphs  over  all  sorrows;  to  speak  forgiveness  and 
peace  to  sinful,  troubled  souls;  to  bring  hope  to  the 
despairful  and  strength  to  the  burden- wearied ;  to  un- 
veil the  richness  and  vitality  of  another  world  as  far 
superior  to  this  as  the  mind  of  God  is  to  the  mind  of 
man ;  to  hold  every  soul  responsible  in  eternity  for  its 
life  in  tune,  and  such  a  faith  will  work  like  a  contagion 
— a  contagion  of  Christian  health,  and  hope,  and  joy, 
and  victory.  One  man  with  a  definite  faith  in  Christ 
can  chase  a  thousand  with  an  indefinite  guess  that 
sprawls  out  over  the  universe,  thinner  than  the  mist 
and  moonshine  composing  its  microscopically  invisible 
backbone.  Much  of  our  Christianity  is  afflicted  with 
a  kind  of  spinal  meningitis.  Its  mental  therapeutics  is 
excellent ;  but  it  is  so  lame  religiously  as  to  require  the 
assistance  of  patent  crutches,  gayly  made  to  order  in 
the  imposing  shops  of  nostrum-venders. 

"It  is  not  our  duty  to-day,"  says  Eucken,  "to  fight 
for  a  new  religion ;  we  have  but  to  kindle  into  freshness 
of  life  the  fathomless  depths  of  Christianity."  What 
a  challenge!  What  a  truth!  What  a  task!  Analyze 
the  philosopher's  statement,  and  what  have  we?  Three 
momentous  facts :  First,  Christianity  means  freshness 
of  life.  When  put  to  the  test,  it  has  always  meant  just 


40  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

that.  Again  and  again  men  and  nations  have  fallen 
on  gray  days;  days  of  the  canker,  the  worm,  the  sere 
and  yellow  leaf;  days  when  noon  was  blacker  than  mid- 
night and  multitudes  went  stumbling  headlong  into 
unlit  gulfs  of  despair;  days  when  men  cursed  God  and 
died  like  beasts  that  perish.  And  lo!  this  chaos  has 
yielded  to  the  Christian  harmony;  this  aching  void 
has  been  filled  with  vast  meanings ;  this  winter  of  men's 
discontent  has  felt  the  shine  of  God's  glowing  sun  from 
behind  cloud-veiled  immensities;  this  blistering  desert 
has  been  carpeted  with  laughing  flowers;  these  lonely 
mountains,  covered  with  bleak,  bare  and  massive  oaks, 
have  slipped  their  dead  oaken  giants  into  suits  of  tune- 
ful greenness;  this  unfertile  valley  has  answered  the 
far-off  and  near-at-hand  vernal  pressures  with  efflor- 
escent bloomings.  And  what  was  it  but  the  Christ- 
ocentric  tidal  freshness  of  life  billowing  in  upon  our 
human  shores  from  the  unemp tying  oceans  of  God? 

0  listen,  Men,  how  all  the  builders  sing! 
0  sap,  0  song,  0  green  world  blossoming! 

White  as  the  hand  of  Moses  blooms  the  thorn, 
Sweet  as  the  breath  of  Jesus  comes  the  spring. 

Second,  Christianity  contains  fathomless  depths. 
Tunes  without  number  the  New  Testament  wells  of 
truth  have  seemingly  been  stopped.  The  Abrahams 
of  faith  have  all  apparently  vanished  into  the  silent 
land,  while  Philistines,  ancient  and  modern,  have  filled 
the  wells  digged  by  the  faithful  with  earth,  ofttimes 
very  coarse  intellectual,  scientific,  and  unbelieving 
earth  at  that.  But,  fortunately,  the  Abrahams  have 
invariably  left  behind  the  Isaacs  who  dig  again  the 
wells  of  water.  And  in  the  new  digging  new  and 
fathomless  depths  are  revealed.  I  heard  Josef  Hoff- 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  41 

man,  in  rendering  their  music,  evoke  such  strains  from 
his  piano  that  the  spirits  of  Beethoven,  Schubert,  and 
Chopin  seemed  to  come  back  from  the  eternal  world, 
take  unto  themselves  bodies  wrought  of  delirious 
rhythms  and  thunderous  melodies  and  walk  straight 
into  the  music-room  of  three  thousand  souls.  And  the 
old  masters  of  the  Christian  faith,  bowing  before  the 
one  Master  of  life  and  death  and  the  realms  beyond, 
come  back  in  answer  to  the  call  of  each  new  epoch. 
They  send  the  might  of  their  conquering  faith  thrilling 
and  singing  through  the  souls  of  all  good  soldiers,  as 
they  charge  on  and  up  the  crimson  steeps  beyond  which 
ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  are  garbed  in  the 
woven  splendor  of  Heaven's  sundawn !  For  this  is  the 
quality  of  that  religion  which  Fichte  describes  as  ele- 
vating man  "above  time  as  such,  above  the  transient 
and  the  perishable  and  puts  him  in  immediate  posses- 
sion of  eternity." 

Third,  with  Christianity's  freshness  of  life  and 
fathomless  depths,  any  new  religion,  compounded  of 
Buddhism,  Hinduism,  Shintoism,  Mohammedanism, 
Eddyism,  or  any  other  "ism,"  is  not  only  inadequate, 
but  utterly  puerile  and  outworn — clouds  that  hold  no 
water,  broken  cisterns  that  would  quickly  empty  if 
water  should  be  turned  into  them.  Christianity  is  the 
ocean;  cults  are  the  mud-colored,  bickering  streams 
that  rush  into  it  and  are  swallowed  up.  Christianity 
is  the  sun;  cults  are  the  tapers  that  are  blown  out  by 
one  whiff  of  the  wind  of  reality.  Christianity  is  the 
Great  Physician;  cults  are  the  penurious  quacks  that 
get  their  practice  from  the  hopelessly  inane.  Chris- 
tianity is  life — fresh,  fathomless,  eternal  life.  With 
startling  vividness  Christ  describes  the  mission  of  cults 
and  his  own :  "The  thief  cometh  not,  but  that  he  may 


42  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

steal,  and  kill,  and  destroy;  I  came  that  they  may  have 
life,  and  may  have  it  abundantly." 

Abundant  life,  then,  is  Christ's  own  conception  of 
His  mission.  "In  vain,"  says  Bergson,  "we  force  the 
living  into  this  or  that  one  of  our  molds.  All  the  molds 
crack.  They  are  too  narrow,  above  all  too  rigid,  for 
what  we  try  to  put  into  them.  Our  reason,  so  sure 
of  itself  among  things  inert,  feels  ill  at  ease  on  this 
new  ground.  It  would  be  difficult  to  cite  a  biological 
discovery  due  to  pure  reasoning."  If  the  philosopher 
had  undertaken  an  exposition  of  Christ's  great  life- 
statement,  he  could  not  have  done  better  than  in  these 
words.  For  just  because  of  its  freshness  of  life  and 
fathomless  depths,  Christianity  is  always  cracking 
man-made  molds.  And  while  the  cracking  process  is 
on,  the  cults  ply  their  trade.  Bringing  their  small  cups 
of  theory  and  dipping  up  tiny  bits  of  the  overflowing 
water,  they  tincture  it  with  large  doses  of  nonsense, 
and  then  go  hawking  it  through  the  streets  with  the 
effrontery  of  the  thief  who  comes  but  to  steal,  and  kill, 
and  destroy. 

Meantime,  it  is  the  privilege  and  duty  of  Christians 
to  exercise  a  definite  faith  in  Christ.  He  controls  the 
entire  human  field.  His  are  the  centuries,  the  worlds, 
the  universe.  In  a  reminiscent  mood  the  gifted  mother 
of  the  Rossettis  said:  "I  always  had  a  passion  for 
intellect,  and  my  wish  was  that  my  husband  should 
be  distinguished  for  intellect,  and  my  children  too.  I 
have  had  my  wish,  and  I  now  wish  that  there  were  a 
little  less  intellect  in  the  family  so  as  to  allow  for  a 
little  more  common  sense."  And  is  it  too  much  to  say, 
in  these  shifting  days  when  men,  if  not  over-intellec- 
tualized  are  certainly  under-spiritualized,  that  the 
Jerusalem  which  is  above  and  the  mother  of  us  all, 


THE  UNPURCHASABLES  43 

devoutly  wishes  that  her  earthly  children  may  have 
the  saving  grace  of  that  glorified  common  sense  which 
is  of  the  inmost  essence  of  Christianity?  Fixing  our 
faith-illumined  eyes  upon  the  lame  souls  all  about  us, 
let  us,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  show 
them  how  to  walk  in  the  midst  of  the  years  by  the 
strength  of  the  timeless,  very  definitely  emphasizing 
that  there  is  no  other  name  under  heaven  or  beyond  it 
whereby  men  may  be  saved.  For  in  that  name  is  the 
One  who  whispers  to  humanity's  listening  heart : 

I  am  the  Christ  of  the  land  of  rain, 

The  Christ  of  the  falling,  falling  showers ; 

I  call  the  ancient  spring  to  life  again, 
And  the  land  of  graves  is  the  land  of  flowers. 

I  am  the  Christ  of  the  running  stream, 
That  escapes  from  the  winter  and  laughs  and 
sings, 

Of  the  broken  heart,  and  the  ruined  dream, 
And  all  forgotten,  forsaken  things. 

I  am  the  Christ  of  the  rising  moon, 
And  the  setting  sun,  and  the  falling  star: 

I  am  the  Christ  of  Life's  deep  rune, 
And  the  Country  where  the  lost  faces  are. 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION  1 

Then  he  answered  and  spake  unto  me,  saying,  This  is 
the  word  of  the  Lord  unto  Zerubbabel,  saying,  Not  by 
might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts. — Zech.  iv.  6. 

TAKEN  as  a  whole,  the  text  and  context  disclose  the 
angel's  approach  to  the  prophet  and  the  prophet's  re- 
sponse to  the  angel.  Without  undertaking  to  interpret 
the  fact  of  angels  and  the  method  of  their  communi- 
cating with  men,  the  self-revelation  of  Zechariah 
throughout  the  colloquy  is  most  instructive.  First  of 
all,  we  see  him  as  an  awakened  man.  "And  the  angel 
that  talked  with  me  came  again,  and  waked  me,  as 
a  man  that  is  wakened  out  of  his  sleep."  To  be 
awakened  out  of  physical  sleep  is  a  profound  mystery. 
Were  it  not  so  familiar  to  us,  the  wonder  of  it  all  would 
smite  us  with  awe.  Yet  to  wake  up  a  spiritually  dead 
man  is  more  wonderful  still,  belonging  to  that  un- 
fathomable realm  lying  beyond  the  borders  of  sense. 
A  second  viewpoint  shows  Zechariah  not  only  as  wide 
awake,  but  as  seeing.  "Behold  I  have  seen."  When 
a  man  can  truthfully  say  that,  he  is  beginning  to  match 
his  mind  with  the  heart  of  reality.  The  trouble  with 
most  people  is  that  they  muddle  through  life  without 
seeing  anything  of  abiding  worth.  Oh,  yes!  They 
see  the  stars  sometimes,  but  they  cannot  very  well 
avoid  this  celestial  jewelry.  They  look  at  the  morning 

1  Delivered  before  the  Ministerial  Association  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa., 
Monday,  Dec.  5,  1921. 

44 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      45 

and  evening  sky  now  and  then,  but  how  can  they  help 
it?  Here  was  a  man  who  could  see  things  and  some- 
thing else — even  the  Eternal  Fact  behind  them.  But 
being  awake  and  capable  of  vision,  the  soul  is  an  in- 
sistent plier  of  questions.  "What  are  these,  my  lord?" 
Religion  does  not  chloroform  men;  it  stabs  them 
"broad  awake"  in  every  part  of  their  being.  Religion 
stands  us  tip-toe  on  the  peaks  of  wonder  as  we  ask: 
"What  are  these,  my  Father — these  worlds  and  nations 
and  confusions  and  agonies  and  joys  and  hopes  and 
fears?"  Still  another  glimpse,  and  we  have  the  prophet 
in  the  role  of  listener.  I  think  this  is  one  of  man's 
supreme  achievements.  The  great  listener  is  superior 
to  the  great  talker,  because  truly  great  talking  is  pos- 
sible only  through  truly  great  listening.  At  last  this 
awakened,  seeing,  questioning  man  is  able  to  hear. 
Hence  the  text,  expressing  one  of  the  sublimest  truths 
that  ever  challenged  the  ears  of  mankind:  "Then  he 
answered  and  spake  unto  me,  saying,  This  is  the  word 
of  the  Lord  unto  Zerubbabel,  saying,  Not  by  might,  nor 
by  power,  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 


With  this  background  of  twenty-five  centuries,  let 
us  consider  the  task  before  the  modern  world.  Like 
Zerubbabel,  we  also  have  our  "great  mountain."  It  is 
not  to  rebuild  some  physical  temple  destroyed  by  the 
shock  of  war.  No ;  the  work  is  far  deeper  and  greater, 
more  radical,  more  difficult  than  that.  It  is  ours  to' 
build  the  temple  of  Christian  civilization.  The 
arduousness  of  the  work  will  be  manifest  if  we  con- 
sider a  few  of  the  rooms  which  the  temple  must  contain. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  the  Room  of  Christian  Politics. 


46  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

To  mention  such  a  possibility  provokes  laughter  and 
cynicism  in  some  quarters.  "Christian  politics!"  you 
exclaim.  "Why,  man,  you  are  beside  yourself.  Think 
of  Russia;  think  of  Germany;  think  of  China;  think 
of  Japan;  think  of  Italy  and  France  and  England  and 
America!  Think  of  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Chicago, 
and  San  Francisco!  Think  of  these  facts,  and  then 
how  dare  you  mention  the  idea  of  Christian  politics  in 
the  same  breath?"  I  know  something  of  the  mingled 
feelings  of  derision  and  despair  that  prompt  such 
words.  If  you  are  an  American,  and  not  a  mere  parti- 
san ;  moreover,  if  you  are  much  more  than  an  American 
— that  is,  if  you  are  a  Christian  American,  you  have 
thought  very  seriously  in  these  years  immediately  fol- 
lowing the  Armistice  of  the  sinister  political  forces 
operating  in  our  own  country.  They  have  been  in 
every  political  party  and  in  no  political  party — 
profiteers,  spoilsmen,  partisans,  ward  heelers,  Socialists, 
Democrats,  Republicans,  yellow  journals,  clerical 
mountebanks — verily  all  tongues  and  creeds  and 
nationalities  have  contributed  to  the  whole  seething, 
confusing,  hate-inspired,  godless  business.  Is  it  not  a 
blacker  chapter  than  the  period  of  reconstruction  fol- 
lowing our  Civil  War?  At  a  time  when  America  should 
have  continued  to  play  the  noble  part  she  played  in 
the  World  War;  and  at  a  time,  also,  when  we  were 
entitled  to  one  of  the  greatest  debates  in  the  history 
of  nations — a  straightforward,  nonpartisan,  high- 
minded  discussion  of  issues  involving  the  future  of 
America  and  the  whole  world — what  happened?  We 
were  treated  to  the  spectacle  of  a  personal,  partisan, 
political  brawl.  Some  were  crying:  "Back  to  the  Con- 
stitution!" Others  were  shouting:  "Up  with  Roose- 
velt! Down  with  Wilson!"  Others  were  playing  Ire- 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      47 

land  against  England,  while  others  were  and  are  still 
playing  Germany  against  France,  England,  America, 
and  the  rest  of  the  world.  "In  politics,"  said  Bismarck, 
"there  is  no  room  for  either  hatred  or  love."  In  other 
words,  the  science  of  politics  is  a  kind  of  unprincipled 
national  and  social  protoplasm  containing  all  the  germs 
of  villainy  and  death.  That  is  what  politics  signifies 
to  many.  There  are  others,  however,  who  believe  that 
politics  can  be  Christianized ;  they  believe  that  politics 
must  be  Christianized,  or  civilization  itself  will  go  down 
before  shrapnel  and  poisoned  gas. 

A  second  room  in  this  unbuilt  temple  must  be  named 
Christian  Industrialism.  Here,  again,  we  apparently 
confront  the  impossible.  Capital  and  Labor  are  the 
gigantic  wrestlers  in  the  arena  of  modern  life.  Ours 
is  the  mechanical  age.  Man-power  has  been  so  multi- 
plied by  the  engineer  that  machinery  has  been  char- 
acterized as  "the  Iron  Man  in  International  Politics." 
But  this  Iron  Man  has  two  managers:  he  cannot  get 
on  with  one ;  he  is  so  strong,  so  many-sided,  dominating 
so  many  activities,  that  he  demands  two  managers  in- 
stead of  one.  They  are  Capital  and  Labor.  They  are 
the  two  arms,  the  two  eyes,  the  two  ears,  the  two  feet 
of  this  industrial  giant.  So  far,  his  managers  have  not 
been  able  to  control  him.  And  make  no  mistake,  this 
Iron  Man  is  difficult  to  handle.  Everywhere  his  steps 
are  heard.  He  walks  through  the  bank,  the  factory, 
the  mine,  the  store,  the  farm,  the  armies,  the  navies, 
the  church,  the  school,  the  home.  For  some  reason, 
the  Industrial  Samson  refuses  to  obey  his  managers 
— Capital  and  Labor.  Year  by  year  he  seems  to  grow 
more  savage,  staggering  through  the  world  in  a  kind 
of  blind  fury,  at  times  actually  pulling  the  pillars  of 
the  temple  of  law  and  order  down  upon  himself  and 


48  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

others.  Surely,  both  managers,  working  together,  can 
control  the  Iron  Man.  But  as  yet  they  have  not 
learned  how.  One  says,  "I  will  hold  his  right  hand," 
while  the  other  replies,  "I  will  not  hold  his  left."  Or 
one  says,  "I  will  chain  his  left  foot,"  while  the  other 
answers,  "I  will  not  chain  his  right."  Meantime,  the 
Iron  Man  goes  on  striking  and  kicking,  growing  more 
violent  and  unmanageable  every  day.  Watching  him 
in  his  fury,  his  managers  are  asking:  "Well,  what  are 
we  to  do  next?"  Now,  it  is  easy  enough  to  take  sides; 
make  charges  and  counter-charges;  to  agitate  and  to 
insist  upon  "pitiless  publicity."  Let  us  confess  that 
these  are  all  necessary  and  help  us  get  at  the  root  of 
the  trouble.  But  having  reached  the  root,  have  we 
any  remedy  for  the  wrongs  in  the  rootf  That  is  what 
I  want  to  know,  and  what,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  do 
know.  There  is  enough  healing  power  in  the  Golden 
Rule,  applied  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  to  heal  all  the 
industrial  wounds  in  the  world.  When  men  become 
wise  enough  to  bring  in  the  medicine  they  have  sys- 
tematically thrown  out  the  window,  then — and  not  till 
then — will  this  nervously  sick  patient  named  Capital 
and  Labor  be  cured  of  his  ills. 

Another  room  is  Christian  Education.  Let  no  one 
imagine,  in  this  new  world  epoch,  that  he  is  fitted  for 
living  by  a  course  in  the  arts  and  sciences.  He  may 
know  all  the  literatures,  and  speak  all  the  languages, 
and  understand  the  methods  of  all  the  laboratories,  and 
be  familiar  with  all  the  political  economies,  and  in  the 
end  be  nothing  more  than  a  modern  Mephistopheles — 
a  sneering,  jeering,  efficient,  inhuman  monster,  deadly 
with  the  delight  of  destruction  and  diabolical  with  the 
doom  of  death.  Behind  all  education  for  this  new  time, 
we  must  emphasize,  as  never  before,  the  meaning  and 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      49 

ends  of  education.  Why  are  men  and  women  to  be 
redeemed  from  ignorance  to  knowledge?  What  is  the 
purpose  of  high  school,  college,  and  university?  Is  it 
simply  to  make  thinkers,  and  nothing  more?  Is  it  that 
modern  people  shall  learn  how  to  pick  the  pockets  of 
Mother  Nature  more  scientifically?  When  we  think 
of  the  appalling  ignorance  in  the  world,  and  in  our  own 
country,  it  seems  like  a  waste  of  breath  to  ask  such 
questions.  And  yet,  have  we  not  seen  enough  of  the 
capable  miseducated  modern  man  to  make  us  abso- 
lutely certain  that  another  generation  of  such  abortive 
work  spells  unspeakable  disaster? 

Now,  just  because  God  created  man  to  think,  to  will, 
and  to  love,  Jesus  Christ  alone  so  coordinates  our 
human  powers  that  we  are  made  safe  for  ourselves,  for 
others,  and  for  God.  Thus,  while  we  proceed  in  our 
work  to  humanize  and  to  Americanize,  let  us  increas- 
ingly Christianize.  We  must  have  Christian  education, 
which  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  every  individual,  social, 
national,  and  international  relationship.  We  must 
surely  have  this  or  just  as  surely  have  the  alternative 
— ruin  and  destruction  on  such  a  scale  that  no  thought- 
ful mind  can  contemplate  it  without  dismay.  "Learn 
of  Me" — that  is  Christ's  diploma  to  the  vitally  edu- 
cated human.  If  the  cynic  or  atheist  replies  that  this 
is  vague  and  impracticable,  my  answer  is :  When  men 
have  tried  Christ's  way  as  zealously  as  they  have 
applied  the  methods  of  the  militarist,  the  politician, 
the  profiteer,  and  the  godless  scientist,  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  cry  failure!  "It  has  always  been  a  race 
between  education  and  catastrophe,"  says  Mr.  Wells 
in  what  has  been  termed  the  most  comprehensive  sen- 
tence in  his  "Outline  of  History."  But  to-day  it  is 
plainly  a  race  between  Christian  education  and  the 


60  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

other  kind;  and  the  other  kind  guarantees  disaster  on 
a  world-scale. 

Still  another  room  is  Christian  Internationalism.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  this  is  not  synonymous  with 
bolshevism,  syndicalism,  socialism,  anarchism,  or  any 
one  of  a  dozen  "isms"  that  might  be  mentioned.  Chris- 
tian internationalism  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  nation 
dealing  with  nation;  it  is  the  passion  of  Christian  indi- 
vidualism expressing  itself  through  whole  peoples;  it 
is  the  conviction  that  the  same  law  of  righteousness 
holding  between  man  and  man  likewise  holds  between 
nation  and  nation.  "Until  you  get  rid  of  the  idea  that 
business  is  the  exploitation  of  somebody  or  something," 
says  one  of  the  greatest  of  statesmen,  "you  will  not 
have  come  even  to  the  frame  of  mind  which  makes 
progress  possible."  Is  it  not  also  true  that  until 
nations  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  secret  diplomacy  and 
national  rivalries,  culminating  in  war,  are  not  the  way 
out  of  our  planetary  wrongs,  that  they  cannot  reach 
that  frame  of  mind  which  makes  national  greatness 
possible?  I  am  not  among  those  who  feel  alike  toward 
all  nations.  To  me  America  is  nearer  and  dearer  than 
any  other  nation  could  possibly  be.  The  fact  is,  I 
haven't  much  respect  for  the  person  who  says  that  he 
loves  one  country  just  as  much  as  another.  He  prob- 
ably means  that  he  loves  none  and  hates  all.  Yet 
loving  America  as  I  do,  I  would  rather  see  America  die 
for  the  right  than  live  for  the  wrong;  for  in  dying 
for  the  right,  if  need  be,  I  know  that  America  would 
live  forevermore ;  while  in  living  for  the  wrong,  Amer- 
ica would  be  certain  to  die  in  undying  ignominy.  This 
is  God's  inviolable  law  for  nations  as  well  as  for  indi- 
viduals. Stars  may  rot  in  their  courses,  but  God's  law 
of  justice  cannot  be  repealed — not  even  by  God  Him- 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      51 

self,  for  then  He  would  cease  to  be  God.  It  was  this 
law  of  which  Senator  Thomas  Corwin  spoke  in  1847. 
In  his  indictment  of  America  in  her  relations  with 
Mexico,  he  cited  numerous  examples  in  history  in 
which  the  law  of  retribution  is  executed  toward  nations. 
After  showing  that  the  Great  Avenger  drove  the 
"eagles"  of  France,  under  Napoleon,  back  "to  their  old 
eyrie,  between  the  Alps,  the  Rhine,  and  the  Pyrenees," 
he  said:  "So  it  shall  be  with  yours.  You  may  carry 
them  to  the  loftiest  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras,  they  may 
wave  with  insolent  triumph  in  the  halls  of  the  Monte- 
zumas,  the  armed  men  of  Mexico  may  quail  before 
them,  but  the  weakest  hand  in  Mexico,  uplifted 
in  prayer  to  the  God  of  Justice,  may  call  down 
against  you  a  Power  in  the  presence  of  which  the 
iron  hearts  of  your  warriors  shall  be  turned  into 
ashes." 

Nor  must  we  overlook  the  room  consecrated  to 
Christian  Journalism.  One  of  the  most  tremendous 
forces  in  the  modern  world  is,  of  course,  the  printing 
press.  Like  every  great  power,  the  press  is  capable  of 
evil  as  well  as  good.  Books  inspiring  and  books  in- 
sidious may  issue  from  the  same  pile  of  complicated 
machinery.  Or,  to  change  the  figure,  indecent  litera- 
ture may  wind  itself  like  a  slimy  serpent  about  the 
soul  of  a  nation.  The  more  outwardly  subtle  and 
attractive  it  is,  the  more  deadly  may  be  its  folds  and 
fangs.  Just  here  is  the  terrific  problem  of  the  moving 
picture.  Compellingly  attractive,  it  is  likewise  im- 
measurably effective  for  weal  or  woe.  If  they  keep 
on  emphasizing  their  vile  features,  the  moving  picture 
interests  will  compel  the  State  to  protect  its  childhood 
against  them.  And  the  protection  will  not  take  the 
form  of  an  ineffectual  censorship ;  it  will  be  so  drastic 


62  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

as  to  cut  into  the  sensitive  but  as  yet  unresponsive 
financial  nerve  of  the  screen  business. 

But  the  particular  form  of  publicity  I  now  have  in 
mind  is  journalism.  Do  we  realize  what  an  octopus 
the  twentieth  century  newspaper  is?  Do  not  we  be- 
lieve so  heartily  in  the  liberty  of  the  press  that  we  are 
somewhat  blind  to  the  license  of  the  press?  One  does 
not  have  to  accept  the  whole  of  Upton  Sinclair's  indict- 
ment of  newspapers  to  still  retain  a  definite  impression 
of  something  positively  sinister  in  large  sections  of  the 
newspaper  world.  Grateful  for  the  high-minded  jour- 
nalists, are  we  alive  to  the  menace  of  the  other  brand? 
Some  of  them  are  obtrusively  "yellow";  others  are 
"yellow"  without  being  obtrusively  so;  and  the  latter 
are  the  most  dangerous  of  all.  Respectable  iniquity  is 
to  be  feared  more  than  flagrant  iniquity.  And  why? 
Because  of  its  very  subtlety,  because  of  the  insidious 
and  insinuating  manner  whereby  it  sends  its  thrust 
home.  You  can  kill  a  mad-dog  with  a  bullet;  but  no 
bullet  can  destroy  the  invisible  microorganism.  Yet 
while  the  mad-dog  slays  one  the  microorganism  slays 
thousands.  It  is  even  so  of  the  influence  of  the  semi- 
respectable  newspaper  as  compared  with  the  sensa- 
tional sheet  run  for  selfish  purposes.  Some  publishers 
cannot  read  the  signs  of  the  times  because  their  eyes 
are  blinded  by  dollars  and  dimes;  the  counting  room 
is  too  near  the  editorial  chair;  the  circulation  depart- 
ment and  the  public  welfare  are  miles  apart. 

Meantime,  who  can  measure  the  power  for  right 
and  wrong  our  newspapers  wield?  There  are  a  few 
really  great  independent  papers  in  the  world.  But  in 
thinking  of  the  average  metropolitan  daily,  I  am  in- 
variably reminded  of  a  Joseph's  coat-of-many-colors 
— with  no  Joseph  inside  the  coat;  or,  varying  the 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      63 

metaphor,  I  am  reminded  of  the  voice  of  Jacob,  the 
hand  of  Esau,  and  the  silver  of  Judas  Iscariot.  To  put 
it  in  a  word,  most  newspapers  certainly  "yawp"  too 
much  for  the  standing  room  they  do  not  pay  for. 

But  there  is  another  type  of  journalism  for  which 
too  much  cannot  be  said.  I  mean  that  large  number 
of  denominational  and  undenominational  Christian 
weeklies.  They  are  the  salt  of  our  journalistic  earth. 
Most  of  them  are  published  at  financial  loss;  a  few 
with  perhaps  a  slender  margin  of  profit.  Let  this  be 
said  to  our  shame!  Without  the  inspiring  tides  of 
idealism  constantly  poured  into  the  world's  life  by  our 
Christian  editors,  we  should  suffer  untold  loss  in  our 
politics,  schools,  homes,  and  churches.  They  are 
solvents  of  civilization.  They  clear  the  atmosphere. 
They  lift  discussions  out  of  partisan  muck  up  to  the 
prophetic  mountains.  I  think  every  man  who  reads 
his  partisan  daily — Republican,  Democratic,  Socialistic 
— would  greatly  profit  by  seriously  reading  some  one 
of  the  fine  and  definitely  Christian  weeklies.  They  are 
an  antidote  to  rabid  nationalism ;  they  are  an  offset  to 
violent  partisanship;  they  foster  an  atmosphere  of 
brotherhood  and  world-vision. 


If  these  are  some  of  the  rooms  to  be  built  in  the 
temple  of  Christian  civilization,  how  are  we  to  ap- 
proach our  task?  If  the  question  is  crucial,  the  answer 
is  even  more  so.  The  text  contains  three  answers. 
Two  are  wrong,  but  one  is  right. 

There  is,  first,  the  answer  of  the  voice  named 
"might."  "We  must  reckon  with  humanity  as  it  is," 
says  this  voice.  "Man  is  merely  the  highest  animal 


54  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

we  know;  he  will  never  be  amenable  to  anything  but 
physical  power;  therefore,  the  best  temple  man  may 
hope  to  build  upon  earth  is  by  might."  Strangely 
enough,  the  modern  voice  and  the  voice  in  my  text 
are  identical.  For  this  word  "might,"  according  to 
scholars,  is  packed  with  varied  meanings.  First  it  sig- 
nifies army,  force,  that  which  is  brought  about  only 
through  physical  coercion.  A  second  meaning  is 
wealth,  the  bribing,  buying  power  of  money.  "Just 
wave  the  golden  wand  over  human  hearts;  money 
talks;  people  can  ultimately  understand  no  other  lan- 
guage; use  it  abundantly,  and  all  will  be  well."  A 
third  meaning  of  "might"  is  valor — the  vast  energies 
of  heart  and  will  represented  by  a  CsBsar  or  a  Napoleon. 
Perhaps  our  nearest  modern  synonyms  are  "kultur" 
and  "efficiency." 

There  is  a  second  voice.  It  says  the  temple  must 
be  built  by  "power."  In  a  broad  sense,  we  are  told 
that  "power"  here  denotes  capacity,  cleverness,  diplo- 
macy. Is  it  not  significant  that  the  word  here  trans- 
lated power  is  also  translated  by  two  other  words  in 
the  Old  Testament?  Once  it  is  rendered  "lizard." 
Did  you  ever  lean  upon  the  handle  of  your  hoe  and 
watch  a  rusty  lizard  run  along  an  old  rail  fence  in 
corn-growing  time?  Well,  it  is  a  picture  never  to  be 
forgotten  by  a  boy  brought  up  on  the  old-fashioned 
farm.  Creeping  along  the  rail,  the  lizard  stops  ever 
and  anon  and  "lifts  and  listens."  It  is  a  flesh-and-blood 
exhibition  of  stealth.  Still  another  translation  of  the 
word  power  is  "chameleon."  This  is  most  suggestive 
indeed,  because  we  are  at  once  inducted  into  the  realm 
of  politics.  There  are  some  fifty-nine  species  of  the 
chameleon,  which  is  perhaps  something  near  the  num- 
ber of  political  species  extant  in  this  and  other  lands 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      65 

to-day.  More  pertinent  still,  the  chameleon  possesses 
the  extraordinary  power  of  changing  its  color  to  suit 
its  immediate  environment.  Politically  speaking,  it 
denotes  adaptability,  smartness,  sharpness — in  a  word, 
that  quick-change  type  of  character  so  familiar  in  the 
world  of  diplomacy.  Is  not  the  dress  of  many  a  so- 
called  statesman  of  the  chameleon  style?  A  father  and 
his  son  were  in  the  visitors'  gallery  of  the  United 
States  Senate.  "Father,"  inquired  the  boy,  "who  is 
that  old  gentleman  that's  praying?"  "He  is  the  chap- 
lain." "Does  he  pray  for  the  Senators,  father?"  "No, 
my  son,"  answered  the  father,  after  a  moment's  reflec- 
tion. "When  he  comes  in  and  looks  around  and  sees 
the  Senators  sitting  there,  he  prays  for  the  country." 

Fortunately,  there  is  a  third  voice.  It  says:  "The 
temple  of  Christian  civilization  cannot  be  built  by 
might  nor  power;  it  must  be  built  by  My  Spirit,  saith 
the  Lord  of  hosts."  Suppose  we  approach  this  truth 
along  two  paths.  Negatively,  it  thrusts  us  far  beyond 
an  impersonal  universe.  And  to  break  through  these 
huge  walls  of  matter  is  a  task  of  the  first  magniture,  is 
it  not?  For  man  has  a  definite  setting  in  the  cosmos. 
He  is  related  to  stars,  atoms,  corpuscles,  atmosphere, 
electricity,  ether — indeed  to  all  those  forms  of  uni- 
versal energy  called  magnetic,  radiant,  kinetic,  molecu- 
lar, and  gravitational.  On  his  physical  side,  also,  man 
is  akin  to  the  vegetable,  protozoic,  and  metazoic  eras 
and  mammalian  kingdoms.  Yet  think!  Before  there 
was  a  universe,  there  was  the  Holy  One  that  inhabiteth 
eternity ;  before  there  was  an  electron  or  a  world,  there 
was  God.  "In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth."  Before  there  was  even  the  promise 
of  man  upon  the  earth,  there  was  God,  and,  therefore, 
when  our  solar  system  has  become  a  sunless  ice-floe 


56  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

drifting  through  darkened  seas  of  space,  God  will  still 
be  God.  Behind  all  forms  of  energy,  all  star-clusters, 
all  universes  known  and  unknown,  all  forms  of  life 
that  have  come  and  gone  or  shall  yet  come  and  go,  it 
is  eternally  "by  My  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

Yet,  positively  and  in  the  light  of  Christ,  all  this  is 
scarcely  more  than  a  soulless  impersonalism  devoid 
of  redemptive  meaning  to  mankind.  If  we  believe  not 
only  in  the  God  of  Jesus,  but  in  the  Jesus  of  God — as 
Newton  Clarke  was  wont  to  say — what  a  transfigured, 
personal  universe  is  this  in  which  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being !  Then  are  we  assured  that  Some- 
one and  not  merely  Somewhat  has  broken  through  the 
worlds  of  energy  and  matter  into  the  souls  of  men. 
Immanent  in  all  things,  He  is  personal  in  all  hearts 
and  wills.  Thus,  in  our  Lord's  going  away,  do  we  be- 
hold the  wisdom  of  the  Divine  expedience.  Vanishing 
outwardly,  He  becomes  inwardly  vital.  Then  do  men 
learn  to  walk  with  majesty  the  great  ways  of  being, 
because  He  dwells  within  them.  Other  teachers  have 
left  their  own  scholars  to  interpret  them  to  after  ages. 
When  Socrates  died,  Plato  and  Aristotle  caught  up  the 
Socratic  torch  and  passed  it  forward  to  waiting  hands. 
Jesus  the  Christ,  on  the  contrary,  left  only  one  Teacher, 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  Disciples  He  left— Peter  and 
John  and  James;  but  they  and  all  the  millions  since, 
are  learners  of  Christ,  taught,  if  at  all  truly,  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Jesus  purposely  left  no  successor  in  the 
form  of  apostle,  prophet,  priest,  or  pope.  There  would 
be  multitudes  of  servants  and  witnesses  and  martyrs; 
but  there  would  be  only  one  Teacher,  one  Comforter., 
one  Guide.  "I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you," 
He  said  in  the  Upper  Room  and  still  says,  "but  ye  can- 
not bear  them  now.  Howbeit,  when  He,  the  Spirit  of 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      57 

of  truth,  is  come,  He  shall  guide  you  into  all  the  truth : 
for  He  shall  not  speak  from  Himself;  but  what  things, 
soever  He  shall  hear,  these  shall  He  speak:  and  He 
shall  declare  unto  you  the  things  that  are  to  come.  He 
shall  glorify  Me :  for  He  shall  take  of  Mine,  and  declare 
it  unto  you." 

in 

Consider,  finally,  the  encouragement  in  the  third 
voice  for  our  task.  Primarily,  we  are  made  to  realize 
that  God  is  more  interested  in  His  world-wide  work 
than  all  men  together  can  possibly  be.  This  is  no 
apology  for  human  laziness.  We  cannot  shirk  our  part; 
we  have,  as  men  and  women,  something  to  do  that  we 
must  do.  We  are  workers  together  with  God ;  and  the 
work  is  urgent,  imperative,  destiny-fraught.  At  the 
same  time,  is  it  not  heartening  to  know  that  there  is 
One  Who  runs  and  does  not  weary;  that  while  genera- 
tions appear  and  vanish,  the  Infinite  Toiler  works  on 
forever.  We  work  according  to  timepieces  named 
youth,  middle  age,  and  decline.  Quickly  enough  the 
hands  of  our  physical  clocks  come  to  a  fateful  pause. 
But  God's  timepiece  is  Eternity;  the  ages  and  mil- 
leniums  are  only  minutes  ski  prang  over  the  face  of 
His  dial-plate.  "Where  we  were,"  says  Peary,  recalling 
his  discovery  of  the  North  Pole,  "one  day  and  one 
night  constituted  a  year,  a  hundred  such  days  and 
nights  constituted  a  century."  Once  only  in  thousands 
of  years  does  one  man  reach  a  place  of  vantage  on  the 
earth  where  days  are  as  years  and  years  are  as  cen- 
turies. But  God  is  not  straitened  by  relations  of  Space 
or  Time.  Spatially  speaking,  God  is  everywhere,  and 
"one  day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a 
thousand  years  as  one  day."  I  think  it  was  a  high 


58  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

moment  in  the  life  of  Zerubbabel  and  his  fellow  workers 
when  Zechariah  recovered  this  truth  for  them.  Their 
undertaking  was  so  immense;  their  resources  were  so 
slender;  at  last  they  were  so  tired  and  weary  as  to  be 
on  the  verge  of  collapse.  Then  comes  the  prophet's 
vision  of  the  olive  trees,  on  either  side  of  the  candle- 
stick, close  to  the  golden  spouts,  "that  empty  the  golden 
oil  out  of  themselves."  Important  as  it  is,  human 
agency  may  be  dispensed  with.  We  modern  people  do 
not  think  so,  and  from  some  viewpoints  it  is  not  well 
that  we  should.  Most  of  us  are  altogether  too  willing 
to  let  God  do  it  all.  Nevertheless,  for  confused  minds 
and  frayed  nerves,  for  creatures,  of  a  day  with  tasks 
big  enough  for  time  and  eternity,  there  is  a  mighty 
encouragement  in  knowing  that  God  is  more  pro- 
foundly concerned  in  the  renovation  and  completion  of 
the  world  and  the  universe  than  all  the  intelligences 
within  them.  God  buries  the  generations,  but  His 
regenerations  go  unceasingly  on  forever  and  ever. 

A  second  lesson  is  this:  God  is  always  using 
"might"  and  "power"  in  the  realization  of  His  purposes. 
Here  is  one  of  the  strange  facts  in  the  history  of 
nations  and  individuals.  Sometimes  a  whole  society 
apparently  takes  the  wrong  path.  Selfish,  brutal,  non- 
Christian,  denying  its  own  well-being,  a  State  does 
that  which  is  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  and  in  the 
sight  of  man.  Nobody  would  dare  condone  its  action. 
And  yet,  is  not  history  itself  witness  to  the  truth  that 
nations  in  their  rise  and  fall,  even  by  their  "might" 
and  "power,"  have  been  made  to  consummate  the 
larger  purposes  of  God  for  mankind.  It  is  this  thought 
at  the  back  of  his  mind  which  causes  the  thinker's 
reflection  on  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty.  Behold  these 
blustering  militarists  as  the  avowed  masters  of  the 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      59 

world !  But  in  the  day  of  reckoning,  they  are  like  so 
many  puppets  fastened  to  the  end  of  an  unbreakable 
string  and  made7  to  dance  to  a  tune  they  never  expected 
to  hear.  This  is  not  the  highest  kind  of  sovereignty, 
to  be  sure;  that  is,  it  is  not  the  paternal  or  Christian 
type,  such  as  Christ's  revelation  of  the  Divine  Father- 
hood implies.  Yet  it  is  a  fact,  none  the  less.  Nations 
and  individuals  may  go  squarely  against  right  and 
mercy  and  brotherhood;  while  breaking  God's  Heart 
they  will  break  their  own;  but  even  in  the  misuse  of 
their  "might"  and  "power"  the  Almighty  Spirit  em- 
ploys them  in  the  attainment  of  far-off  ends.  Sending 
themselves  into  bondage,  they  shall  not  come  out  of 
their  self-wrought  imprisonment  until  they  have  paid 
the  last  farthing  of  moral  obligation  and  righteous 
endeavor.  Hence  it  comes  that  honesty  is  not  simply 
the  best  policy;  honesty  is  imperative  and  ultimately 
absolute,  because  the  universe  is  governed  by  an  honest 
God  Who  cannot  furnish  a  hiding-place  for  one  dis- 
honest soul. 

The  third  lesson  is:  Small  ventures  for  God  and 
man  are  of  irresistible  majesty  and  power.  "Who  hath 
despised  the  day  of  small  things?"  Why,  nobody  but 
the  mentally  blind  and  the  wickedly  weak  and  the 
morally  stupid !  The  day  of  small  things  is  none  other 
than  the  day  of  God.  The  big,  noisy  days  are  of  man ; 
but  the  quiet,  untrumpeted,  despicably  small  days  are 
of  God.  Was  it  not  in  a  day  of  small  things  that  God 
was  enfleshed;  that  the  Church  was  born;  that  the 
Reformation  was  conceived;  that  America  was  dis- 
covered? We  now  speak  of  these  as  great  epochs  and 
creative  eras.  Certainly!  It  is  much  easier  to  see 
backward  than  forward,  or  than  to  look  around  even 
now  and  distinguish  anything  Divine  afoot  in  the 


60  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

world!  Yet  the  Invisible  Sower  is  this  very  hour 
striding  through  the  furrows  of  mankind.  Silently  He 
sows,  silently  His  harvest  grows.  God's  best  seeds  are 
prophets  and  teachers  and  dreamers  and  servants  and 
martyrs.  Like  the  grains  of  wheat,  except  these  also 
fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  they  abide  by  themselves 
alone — alone! — and,  therefore,  unprolific.  But  death, 
being  the  servant  of  life,  releases  their  deathless  ener- 
gies and  they  become  one  with  the  undying.  "I  shall 
have  more  to  say  when  I  am  dead" — this  is  the  watch- 
word of  those  who  toil  through  the  day  of  small  things. 
And  why?  Not,  surely,  because  of  small  things  or 
large  things!  But,  rather,  because  of  "the  Eyes  of 
the  Lord,  which  run  to  and  fro  throughout  all  the 
earth."  Here  are  Eyes  big  enough  for  the  world,  for 
the  universe.  Here  are  Eyes  that  can  discern  what 
ought  to  be  done,  and  then  find  a  way  to  do  it.  Here 
are  Eyes  that  can  see  beyond  national  boundaries, 
social  circles,  intellectual  cliques,  capitalistic  schemes, 
bolshevik  class  consciousness,  religious  exclusiveness. 
Here  are  Eyes  that  laid  the  foundations  of  the  universe 
not  on  galaxies  but  on  electrons ;  that  see  not  only  huge 
constellations  but  invisible  atomic  systems;  that 
understand  how  all  large  things  grow  out  of  small 
things — from  universes  to  nations,  from  nations  to  in- 
dividuals; that  know  the  cosmos  itself  is  compelled 
to  bear  witness  to  the  moral  certitude  that  "many  shall 
be  last  that  are  first,  and  first  that  are  last."  So,  as 
the  workmen  go  about  their  task,  they  chant  the  music 
of  their  building-song: 

Happy  he  whose  inward  ear 
Angel  comfortings  can  hear 

O'er  the  rabble's  laughter; 
And,  while  hatred's  faggots  burn, 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION      61 

Glimpses  through  the  smoke  discern 
Of  the  good  hereafter. 

Knowing  this,  that  never  yet 
Share  of  Truth  was  vainly  set, 

In  the  world's  wide  fallow; 
After  hands  shall  sow  the  seed, 
After  hands  from  hill  and  mead, 

Reap  the  harvests  yellow. 

Thus,  with  somewhat  of  the  Seer, 
Must  the  moral  pioneer 

From  the  Future  borrow; 
Clothe  the  waste  with  dreams  of  grain, 
And,  on  midnight's  sky  of  rain, 

Paint  the  golden  morrow  1 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA 

And  hereby  know  we  that  we  know  Him,  if  we  keep 
His  commandments. — I.  John  ii.  3. 

ST.  JOHN  was  an  expert  in  spiritual  science.  He 
was  a  master  of  the  forces  which  operate  in  the 
spiritual  realm.  The  secret  of  his  spiritual  mastery  lay 
in  his  profound  God-consciousness.  A  great  modern 
saint  has  said:  "To  believe  in  God  means  something 
fiery  and  glowing."  And  John,  the  beloved,  was  a 
first  century  fulfillment  of  this  august  ideal.  There 
was  something  fiery,  something  glowing,  in  his  belief 
in  God.  As  we  read  his  words  now,  that  inwoven  fire 
of  his  heart,  begotten  by  the  infolding  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  flashes  out  in  unconsuming  flame.  His 
consciousness  of  God  was  more  real  than  the  physical 
universe.  The  world  might  drop  from  under  him. 
Stars  might  be  snuffed  out  like  candles.  Suns  might 
be  blown  out  like  matches.  Yet  one  somehow  feels 
that  John  would  still  get  on  magnificently. 

Of  course,  he  received  superior  training  in  the  school 
of  God-consciousness.  For  did  not  his  head  rest  upon 
the  pulsing  bosom  of  humanized  Deity?  Did  not  his 
ear,  as  Hugo  says,  hear  the  beating  of  God's  heart? 
Did  not  his  hand  feel  the  grasp  of  enfleshed  Godhead? 
Did  not  his  eyes  behold  how  the  Eternal  looked  as  He 
peered  through  human  windows?  Surely,  John  had 
most  excellent  training  in  the  final  reality  of  God- 
vividness.  John  Henry  Newman  was  converted  at  fif- 

62 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA  63 

teen.  Many  years  afterwards  he  wrote:  "Of  inward 
conversion  I  am  still  more  certain  than  that  I  have 
hands  and  feet."  Just  multiply  this  a  thousandfold. 
Then  will  you  begin  to  approach  the  awful,  divine 
certainty  of  inward  conversion  as  manifested  by  the 
son  of  Zebedee. 

Now,  one  of  the  imperial  facts  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness, according  to  John,  is  this :  Every  man  may 
know  that  he  knows  God.  Does  it  make  us  wince? 
Does  it  make  us  stagger?  It  ought  not.  It  ought  to 
fill  us  with  a  majestic  feeling  of  bigness.  It  ought  to 
break  upon  us  a  sense  of  unrealized  spiritual  spacious- 
ness. It  ought  to  make  us  cry  out  like  a  man  smother- 
ing to  death.  It  ought  to  make  us  shout  like  a  man  on 
a  desert  island  to  a  passing  ship.  It  ought  to  make  us 
ashamed  to  sit  still  upon  our  piles  of  golden  dirt.  Let 
us  face  John's  colossal  fact. 


Knowing  that  we  know  God  is  a  personally  progres- 
sive process.  "And  hereby  we  know  that  we  know 
Him."  Or,  better  still,  I  think,  and  more  in  tune  with 
the  original:  "And  herein  we  come  to  know  that  we 
know  Him."  Or,  let  us  make  it  first  person,  singular, 
and  the  idea  will  be  driven  home :  "And  herein  I  come 
to  know  that  I  know  Him." 

Assuredly,  we  must  make  full  allowance  for  all 
primary  and  instantaneous  manifestations  of  God  to 
the  soul.  Christian  history  fairly  bristles  with  them. 
They  fit  into  the  Christian  firmament  as  the  stars  fit 
into  the  sky.  The  man  who  denies  them  is  either  a 
fool,  or  a  knave,  or  both.  Spiritual  revolutions,  whole 
civilizations  have  come  to  birth  in  the  epochal  hour 


64  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

of  sudden  individual  conversion.  Witness  St.  Paul. 
Witness  St.  Augustine.  Witness  untold  millions, 
living  and  dead,  who,  in  some  tumultuous,  crucial 
moment  have  realized  the.  dawning  of  spiritual  self- 
consciousness,  through  Christ  Jesus.  But  just  now  we 
are  to  remember  that  John  is  not  writing  to  unchris- 
tian people.  He  is  writing  to  "my  little  children." 
He  is  writing  to  those  of  whom  he  says :  "Beloved,  now 
are  we  the  children  of  God,  and  it  is  not  yet  made  mani- 
fest what  we  shall  be."  These  are  the  people  to  whom 
he  seems  to  say:  "Knowing  that  we  know  God  is  a 
personally  progressive  process.  And  herein  we  come 
to  know  that  we  know  Him." 

Well,  what  does  John  mean?  I  think  the  truth  is 
inexpressibly  sublime.  He  means  just  this:  Every 
soul  must  know  God  for  itself.  No  other  soul  can 
know  God  for  my  soul.  No  other  soul  can  know  God 
for  your  soul.  Every  other  created  spirit  in  the  uni- 
verse may  know  God.  Yet  am  I  compelled  to  know 
Him  for  myself,  and  not  another.  Compelled?  Yes! 
But  O,  what  a  glorious  compulsion  it  is!  How  it 
swings  the  soul  out  into  the  spaces  of  spiritual  freedom ! 
How  it  thrills  one  with  a  sense  of  his  spiritual  birth- 
right! "But  it  is  so  hard,"  you  say.  "I  have  tried  it." 
Perhaps  that  is  just  the  trouble,  my  friend.  You  have 
tried  it.  You  have  insisted  upon  doing  it  all  yourself. 
Suppose  you  give  God  a  chance.  Suppose  you  subdue 
that  will  long  enough  to  push  it  up  alongside  the  will 
of  God.  Suppose,  in  a  word,  you  surrender  your  life 
to  God.  Mayhap  you  are  too  active,  too  strenuous, 
too  noisy.  Suppose  you  practice  genuine  meditation 
for  a  little.  You  will  not  find  it  an  easy  thing  to  do. 
Liddon  defined  meditation  as  putting  oneself  down  be- 
fore a  truth  and  waiting  to  see  what  that  truth  says 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA  65 

to  you.  Suppose,  then,  you  become  wisely  still  before 
God.  Then  pray,  in  Christ's  holy  name,  that  God's 
own  stillness  may  steal  into  your  soul.  For  Eucken  is 
right  in  saying  that  the  spiritual  task  is  beset  by  enor- 
mous complexities.  But  "in  particular,  the  danger  lest 
spiritual  work  should  be  subordinated  to  the  power  of 
the  merely  human."  And  the  merely  human,  divorced 
from  the  positively  divine,  always  results  in  the  inner 
emptiness,  the  invisible  anarchy. 

No,  my  friend,  knowing  that  you  know  God  is  not 
hard,  if  you  go  about  it  in  the  right  way.  But  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  if  you  go  about  it  in  the  wrong 
way.  You  might  as  well  try  to  reach  the  North  Pole 
by  ascending  to  the  top  of  your  chimney,  as  to  really 
and  savingly  know  God,  other  than  by  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Christ.  "I  am  the  truth ! "  How  peremptorily,  how 
majestically,  how  Godlike  it  rings  out!  Some  phi- 
losophers talk  about  truth  as  if  it  were  a  sky-rocket 
shot  into  the  night.  Away  up  in  the  air  somewhere  an 
explosion  occurs.  Then  myriad,  fiery  globes  of  dazzling 
colors  coruscate  and  gleam  and  sparkle.  Then  the 
globes  dwindle  into  dots  of  fading  flame.  Then  the 
vanishing  dots  of  fading  flame  vanish  into  nothingness. 
And  the  face  of  night  is  as  black  as  ever.  Well,  Christ 
is  not  that  kind  of  truth.  He  is  not  a  philosophic  sky- 
rocket. He  does  not  shoot  a  ray  of  light  into  the 
brain  and  say:  "Brain,  be  brilliant."  He  does  not 
drop  a  luminous  spark  into  the  will  and  say:  "Will,  be 
obedient."  He  does  not  thrust  a  candle  into  the  soul 
and  say:  "Soul,  be  light."  No :  there  is  no  such  frac- 
tional fragmentariness  in  our  Lord.  He  lights  up  the 
whole  man.  He  illuminates  the  entire  human  organ- 
ism. Instead  of  setting  a  bright  light  in  the  window 
of  one  faculty,  that  it  may  signal  to  a  pale  light  in  the 


66  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

window  of  another  faculty,  He  pours  Himself — the 
Life,  the  Light,  the  Truth — into  the  hidden  center  of 
human  nature.  From  that  center  radiates  the  light 
which  makes  luminous  the  whole  man — the  body,  the 
soul,  the  spirit. 

Why,  Christ  Christianizes  the  soul  as  the  sun 
atmospheres  the  earth  with  summer.  How  does  the 
sun  bring  summer  to  our  world?  By  painting  the  daisy 
white  and  golden  and  forgetting  to  dye  the  rose  cream 
and  crimson?  By  making  the  corn  green  and  forgetting 
to  green  the  "emerald  meadows"?  By  striking  song 
through  the  robin's  throat  and  forgetting  to  pour  music 
through  the  cardinal's  voice?  By  unfolding  the  peach 
blossom  and  forgetting  to  congeal  the  oak's  sap  into  an 
acorn?  By  ripening  the  strawberry  and  forgetting  to 
ripen  the  apple?  By  renewing  the  face  of  nature  and 
forgetting  to  renew  the  face  of  man?  Ah,  no!  That 
is  not  the  way  the  sun  brings  summer  to  our  dear  old 
earth.  Somehow  he  blows  his  warm  breath  in  behind 
everything.  Then  there  is  a  stir  in  every  seed.  Then 
there  is  a  throb  in  every  plant.  Then  there  is  a  pulse 
in  every  tree.  Then  there  is  a  warble  in  every  bird. 
Then  there  is  a  glow  in  every  face.  Everything  seems 
to  whisper:  "I  am  in  the  summer  time.  I  am  in  the 
summer  zone.  I  am  in  the  summer  atmosphere.  I  am 
in  the  summer  world.  I  am  drinking  brimming  goblets 
of  summer  shine.  The  sun  hath  wooed  and  won  me. 
I  am  all  radiant  in  the  richness  of  his  life  and  love." 
So  is  it  with  Christ  and  the  soul.  When  He  comes,  the 
complete  man  begins  to  pulse  and  glow.  Dead  facul- 
ties begin  to  bud  and  blossom.  Decayed  areas  of  being 
begin  to  sprout.  Waste  places  begin  to  leap  and  sing 
with  joy  and  hope.  Unrealized  capacities  are  flooded 
with  thought.  The  whole  man  moves  forward — in- 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA  67 

ward,  outward,  upward,  Godward.  For  the  Christian 
is  a  vast  sunshine  recorder,  because  he  is  abidingly  sun- 
shining  in  the  eternal  summerliness. 

Does  it  still  seem  hard  and  strange?  Let  me  ask 
you :  Is  it  hard  and  strange  to  let  the  light-waves  beat 
in  upon  your  eyes?  For  untold  centuries  they  have 
been  on  their  way  to  meet  your  eye.  Now,  when  those 
light-waves  arrive  from  far  off  worlds,  is  it  hard  for 
your  eye  to  enter  them  in,  that  you  may  behold  the 
face  of  your  friend?  Well,  on  the  night  before  He  died, 
our  Lord  said:  "Let  not  your  hearts  be  troubled. 
When  I  have  died  to  redeem  mankind;  when  I  have 
laid  down  my  life  and  taken  it  again;  when  I  have 
ascended  back  into  yonder  heavens  out  of  which  I 
came ;  when  I  have  been  glorified,  I  will  not  leave  you 
comfortless.  I  will  not  leave  you  sunless.  I  will  not 
leave  you  lightless.  I  will  send  you  another  Com- 
forter. I  will  be  as  light-waves  to  your  souls." 

ii 

That  every  soul  may  know  God,  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental concepts  of  Christianity.  The  Master  taught 
it  with  insistent  and  unbroken  emphasis.  It  is  a  truth 
with  which  the  writings  of  St.  John  overflow.  He 
states  it  now  in  one  form,  now  in  another,  but  always 
with  clear-cut  definiteness.  Knowing  that  we  know 
God  is  one  of  John's  rock-ribbed  affirmations.  In  one 
great  passage  he  gives  both  the  fact  and  the  method 
of  such  knowledge.  "Anjd  herein  we  come  to  know 
that  we  know  Him" — there  is  the  mighty  fact,  a  per- 
sonally progressive  process,  if  you  please.  Then  he 
states  the  law,  the  conditions  of  all  effectual  knowledge 
of  God.  It  is  this:  "If  we  keep  His  commandments." 


68  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

"But  it  is  so  hard  to  attain  this  definite  knowledge," 
I  hear  some  one  say.  "The  process  is  so  very  difficult." 
Ah !  the  trouble,  then,  is  with  the  process?  But  after 
all,  is  this  personally  progressive  process  of  knowing 
that  we  know  God,  so  hard?  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that 
I  myself  am  a  much  harder  proposition  than  the 
process.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  much  more  un- 
willing to  have  the  process  vitally  and  continuously 
operative  in  my  spirit,  than  is  the  loving  Father  God 
willing  and  waiting  to  make  it  so.  Yet  St.  John  knows 
that  herein  is  life,  love,  and  peace.  That  is  just  why, 
I  take  it,  he  lays  down  this  essential  condition  of 
spiritual  knowledge:  "If  we  keep  His  command- 
ments." There  is  both  an  internal  and  external  sig- 
nificance in  that  pregnant  phrase  "to  keep."  It  sug- 
gests a  thoroughgoing  aliveness  of  the  soul  to  God.  It 
cannot  be  comprehended  by  ritual  and  ceremonial.  For 
Christianity  is  not  a  system  of  religious  mechanics. 
It  is  rather  a  spiritual  movement  in  abounding  vitali- 
ties. And  John  is  insisting,  through  Gospel  and  Epistle, 
that  knowledge  of  God  is  conditional  upon  hearty, 
whole-souled  obedience. 

In  particular,  his  guns  are  turned  upon  the  fortress 
of  Gnosticism.  Mere  intellectual  enlightenment  is  the 
thing  John  is  bombarding.  This  is  one  of  the  deadly 
enemies  we  need  to  drive  from  his  false  citadel  to-day. 
Principal  Forsyth  began  his  great  address  before  the 
Congregational  Union  at  Sheffield,  England,  in  these 
words :  "I  have  often  said  that  Christianity  is  at  this 
moment  (all  unknown  to  most  Christians)  passing 
through  a  graver  crisis  than  any  it  has  encountered 
since  the  Gnosticism  of  the  second  century  provoked  a 
mortal  conflict  which  turned  Christianity  into  the 
Catholic  Church.  The  Church  won  then.  But  what  is 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA  69 

all  our  Christian  effort  worth  if  the  decision  go  against 
us  now?" 

For  Gnosticism,  whether  in  the  Church  or  out  of  it, 
whether  in  the  pulpit  or  the  philosopher's  chair,  is 
always  prouder  of  its  cut-and-dried  intellectualism 
than  of  its  Christian  spirituality.  Naturally,  but  not 
altogether  paradoxically,  it  fights  like  a  Turk,  when 
confronted  with  this  accusation.  That  is,  it  fights  with 
pneumatic  words  for  weapons.  Still,  it  is  hardly  a 
question  of  inflated  words,  I  think.  It  is  a  question  of 
tragic  fact.  It  is  a  question  of  chilled  religious  condi- 
tions. It  is  a  question  of  an  unspiritual  atmosphere 
which  men  breathe.  Uproariously  insisting  that  wis- 
dom began  and  will  therefore  perish  with  them,  they 
are  little  other  than  galvanized  corpses  parading  as 
Christianized  bipeds.  Of  course  they  get  nowhere. 
They  chew  over  frayed  and  worn  theories,  some  thou- 
sands of  years  old.  Then  one  day,  after  their  intellec- 
tual cud  is  quite  hard  and  dry,  they  suddenly  blow 
these  petrified  theories  forth  upon  the  world.  Then, 
with  their  wisdom-goggles  cocked  at  the  proper 
angle,  they  wait  for  a  religious  revolution.  They  por- 
tend a  cataclysmic  intellectual  upheaval.  But  when 
both  fail  to  materialize,  then  our  modern  Gnostics 
forthwith  explain  what  their  propaganda  does  not 
mean. 

Now,  John  affirms,  there  is  no  vitalized  and  vitalizing 
Christianity  apart  from  obedience  to  God,  as  revealed 
in  Christ.  Even  Aristotle  insisted  that  in  morals 
knowledge  divorced  from  practice  is  worthless.  The 
Greek's  virtuous  man  has  to  perform  virtuous  acts. 
"First,  knowingly;  secondly,  from  deliberate  prefer- 
ence, and  deliberate  preference  for  the  sake  of  acts  (and 
not  any  advantages  resulting  from  them) ;  and,  thirdly, 


70  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

with  firm  and  unvarying  purpose."  Still,  Aristotle's 
virtuous  man  is  not  so  tall,  from  his  shoulders  upwards, 
as  St.  John's  Christianized  man.  Aristotle's  man  may 
serve  any  of  the  warring  gods  of  Olympus,  which  one  is 
a  matter  of  small  moment.  John's  man  must  obey  the 
God  of  Christ  Jesus.  Every  Christian  has  the  privilege 
of  proving  that  he  knows  God.  But  there  is  only  one 
method  of  making  his  hypothesis  burn  with  the  white 
heat  of  Christian  reality.  It  is  to  keep,  inwardly  and 
outwardly,  His  commandments. 

Moreover,  while  the  apostle  is  a  startlingly  original 
thinker,  yet  this  truth  of  knowing  that  we  know  God 
did  not  originate  with  him.  I  think  I  can  tell  almost 
the  very  day  that  its  germ  fell  into  John's  heart.  He 
is  not  the  wise  old  man  who  writes  this  letter.  No !  It 
is  away  back  in  his  springtime.  His  nature  is  just 
beginning  to  feel  the  divine  ploughshare.  The  Good 
Husbandman  is  only  commencing  to  tread  the  furrows 
of  his  being.  The  good  seed  is  being  sown  for  the  first 
time  in  the  rich,  responsive  soil  of  his  soul.  Ah!  yes,  it 
is  away  down  the  stream  of  years  we  have  to  go — even 
from  John  the  Aged  to  John  the  Younger.  The  heav- 
enly songsters  are  only  awaking  to  song  in  his  heart. 
For  him  the  buds  of  the  Tree  of  Life  are  just  beginning 
to  unroll.  I  think  it  was  upon  a  feast  day  in  old 
Jerusalem.  Then  and  there  did  this  ripened  truth  of 
his  age  begin  to  stir  in  John's  soul.  The  Jews  are  hard 
upon  his  Master's  track.  He  is  shunted  into  Galilee, 
then  back  again  into  Judea.  Like  a  pack  of  ravenous 
wolves,  they  are  bent  on  having  His  blood.  Even  His 
brethren  taunted  Him.  Even  His  brethren  carped  at 
Him.  Nevertheless,  in  the  midst  of  the  feast  Jesus 
went  into  the  temple  and  taught.  The  Jews  marveled 
and  said:  "How  knoweth  this  man  letters,  having 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S  EUREKA  71 

never  learned?"  His  answer  came  clear  as  the  noon- 
day. It  is  still  vibrant  like  the  golden  tones  of  a  cathe- 
dral bell,  ringing  through  life's  morning,  noontide,  and 
sundown.  "My  teaching  is  not  Mine,  but  His  that  sent 
Me.  If  any  man  willeth  to  do  His  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  teaching,  whether  it  is  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak 
from  Myself."  And  young  St.  John  heard  these  death- 
less words.  Their  meaning  shot  into  his  inmost  soul. 
Now  old  St.  John  is  writing  down  once  again  the  words 
upon  which  young  St.  John  first  began  to  live.  "And 
herein  we  come  to  know  that  we  know  Him,  if  we  keep 
His  commandments." 

This  truth  was  never  more  keenly  and  comprehen- 
sively phrased  than  by  Robertson  of  Brighton.  Ap- 
pointed chaplain  to  the  sheriff  in  1852,  he  preached  at 
the  assizes,  which  were  held  at  Lewes.  Taking  for  his 
text  John,  vii.  17,  he  delivered  his  masterful  sermon  on 
"Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge."  Stop- 
ford  Brooke,  his  biographer,  says: 

"It  was  curious,  I  have  been  told,  to  watch  the  pew 
set  apart  for  the  judges — Mr.  Justice  Coleridge  and 
Mr.  Baron  Parke.  Its  occupants,  on  the  conclusion  of 
the  'afternoon  service/  expecting  nothing  to  disturb 
their  intellect,  settled  themselves  into  decent  postures, 
full  of  ease,  for  their  customary  reverie.  But  before 
three  minutes  of  the  sermon  had  passed  by,  their 
attention  was  riveted,  their  position  changed,  and  they 
listened  with  evident  interest  to  a  discourse  of  forty 
minutes  in  length.  The  conclusion  of  the  first  sermon 
was  remembered  well :  'From  the  trial-hour  of  Christ 
— from  the  cross  of  the  Son  of  God — there  arises  the 
principle,  to  which  His  life  bore  witness,  that  the  first 
lesson  of  Christian  life  is  this — be  true;  and  the  second 
this — be  true ;  and  the  third  this — be  true.'  " 


72  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

So,  let  us  learn  it  once  and  forever:  Obedience  is 
the  key,  obedience  is  the  organ  of  spiritual  knowledge. 
There  is,  because  there  can  be,  no  other.  An  old  axiom 
runs:  "Obey  the  law  of  a  force,  and  the  force  will  obey 
you."  Obey  the  law  of  atoms,  and  atoms  will  obey 
you.  Obey  the  law  of  electrons,  and  electrons  will  obey 
you.  Obey  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  gravitation  will 
obey  you.  Obey  the  law  of  light,  and  light  will  obey 
you.  "So  far,  so  good!"  you  say.  But  let  us  go  on: 
Obey  the  law  of  spiritual  knowledge,  and  spiritual 
knowledge  will  obey  you.  Why  do  we  become  suddenly 
and  emphatically  unscientific  just  here?  Why  do  men 
become  masters  of  atoms,  electrons,  and  microbes,  and 
are  yet  naively  content  to  leave  uninvaded  this  definite 
realm  of  spiritual  truth,  this  enriching  zone  of  reward- 
ing reality?  Surely  they  must  be  afflicted  with  a  blind- 
ness which  the  penetrating  power  of  radium  fails  to 
search  out.  They  must  have  a  dimness  of  vision  which 
the  brilliance  of  electricity  cannot  expel.  They  must 
have  a  cold,  icelike,  inner  deadness,  which  the  warmth 
of  no  culture  can  resuscitate.  Wherefore,  we  must  seek 
the  warm,  wooing,  glowing  light  of  Him  who  is  the 
light  of  the  world.  "There  was  the  true  light,  even  the 
light  which  lighteth  every  man,  coming  into  the  world. 
He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was  made  through 
Him,  and  the  world  knew  Him  not.  He  came  unto  His 
own,  and  they  that  were  His  own  received  Him  not. 
But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  the 
right  to  become  children  of  God,  even  to  them  that 
believe  on  His  name:  who  were  born,  not  of  blood, 
nor  of  the  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man, 
but  of  God." 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 
Thy  Kingdom  come. — Luke  xi.  2. 

WE  are  sometimes  reminded  that  the  petitions  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer  are  paralleled  in  the  Talmud.  Conse- 
quently, the  former  lacks  originality.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  a  striking  resemblance  in  several  of  the 
petitions,  if  not  in  the  entire  seven.  Nevertheless,  the 
view  that  the  Great  Prayer  is  therefore  on  the  same 
level  with  Talmudic  and  other  writings  is  not  well 
sustained.  I  have  heard  that  the  test  of  originality  is 
not  in  saying  a  thing  first,  but  in  saying  it  best.  A 
deeper  expression  of  the  truth,  it  seems  to  me,  is  not 
either  saying  a  thing  first  or  best,  but  in  saying  it  with 
the  accent  of  finality.  The  originality  of  Jesus,  then,  is 
not  merely  a  matter  of  words  or  even  of  thoughts.  His 
supremacy  in  these  is  unquestionable.  Yet  there  is  a 
backlying  matter  of  profounder  import.  It  is  the  Mas- 
ter's personality,  His  character,  His  being.  What  He 
was  and  is  constitutes  the  uniqueness  of  our  Lord. 
Therefore,  whatever  He  touches  takes  unto  itself  a  new 
distinction.  It  is  because  they  are  stamped  with  His 
own  personality  that  these  seven  petitions  have  super- 
lative worth.  They  may  have  been  repeated  a  million 
tunes  before ;  but  the  moment  they  were  taken  up  into 
Christ's  thought  and  voiced  by  His  lips,  a  new  epoch 
in  the  evolution  and  history  of  prayer  was  ushered  in. 

The  petition  which  forms  my  text  expresses  one  of 
the  great  and  familiar  ideas  of  Christianity.  Men's 
73 


74  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

thoughts  have  always  centered  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
They  have  looked  and  prayed  and  worked  for  it  the 
ages  through;  they  will  continue  looking  and  praying 
and  working  for  it  until  it  comes  in  all  its  Christian 
reality.  My  purpose  at  present  is  to  lay  what  I  think  a 
needed  emphasis  upon  the  Kingdom  in  its  wholeness. 
When  one  considers  the  eternity  and  grandeur  of  the 
thought,  what  foolish  words  have  I  spoken!  For  "there 
is  recognized/'  says  a  qualified  student,  "in  Scripture — 
Old  Testament  and  New  Testament  alike — a  natural 
and  universal  kingdom  or  dominfoil  of  God,  embracing 
all  objects,  persons,  and  events,  all  doings  of  individuals 
and  nations,  all  operations  and  changes  of  nature  and 
history,  absolutely  without  exception,  which  is  the  basis 
on  which  a  higher  kind  of  kingdom — a  moral  and  spirit- 
ual kingdom — is  to  be  built."  Is  it  because  of  its 
vastness  that  we  are  tempted  to  think  so  fragmentarily 
of  the  Higher  Kingdom?  It  may  be  so.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  fragmentariness  in  this  matter  may  be  due 
to  the  fact  that  we  are  developing  fragmentary  habits 
of  thought  and  life. 


Consider,  first,  the  origin  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
It  did  not  originate  with  history  or  even  time  itself. 
Undoubtedly  the  Kingdom,  or  Realm  of  God,  has  a 
history  in  tune.  Yet  we  sometimes  forget,  in  our  nar- 
row and  parochial  outlooks,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  older  than  history,  older  than  the  ages.  We  must 
date  its  beginning  with  God — and  God  never  had  a 
beginning!  I  am  putting  the  matter  in  this  way  be- 
cause most  of  us  need  the  scourge  of  eternal  whips. 
We  hearken  so  much  to  the  humming  of  the  tiny  tern- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  75 

poral  bees  forever  drumming  their  ditties  at  our  ears 
that  we  need  to  hear  the  booming  surge  of  billows 
rolling  in  from  the  deeps  of  infinite  seas.  Now  one  of 
these  billows,  surely,  is  in  the  origin  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  Before  there  was  a  universe,  or  a  world,  or  a 
man,  the  Everlasting  Kingdom  was  born  in  the  mind 
and  heart  of  Godhead.  Yet  do  not  most  of  us  treat  this 
imperial  truth  as  if  it  were  a  kind  of  after-thought 
thrust  into  time  and  history? 

Take  the  earth  and  the  universe  as  an  illustration  of 
this  larger  concept  of  the  Kingdom.  Our  planet  is 
quite  old,  authorities  say  many  millions  of  years.  Also, 
from  certain  viewpoints,  the  earth  is  very  large.  But 
in  comparison  with  the  universe  the  earth  is  neither  old 
nor  large.  Speaking  after  the  manner  of  men,  there  are 
worlds  so  much  older  and  larger  than  ours  that  they 
are  as  a  grayhead  to  an  infant,  as  a  mountain  to  a 
midget.  In  other  words,  the  universe  did  not  begin  to 
be  with  the  birth  of  our  world  out  of  the  firemist.  Nor 
did  the  Kingdom  of  God  begin  with  time,  or  history,  or 
the  Bible.  It  is  as  much  older  and  greater  than  these 
as  the  universe  is  older  and  greater  than  the  compara- 
tively youthful  planet  on  which  we  live.  For  the  King- 
dom of  God  is  primarily  of  the  heavens  and  the  eterni- 
ties. No  seer  first  foresaw  it;  no  prophet  first  foretold 
it ;  no  poet  first  visualized  it.  It  began  first  in  the  Heart 
of  God ;  it  is  the  irruption  of  Godhead  into  humanity 
and  history. 

Now,  why  dwell  upon  this  highly  speculative  truth  in 
our  emphatically  practical  day?  For  two  reasons. 
First,  the  only  way  to  be  truly  practical  is  to  be  truly 
spiritual.  We  know  that  men  are  spirits;  but  men  see 
so  much  of  each  other  in  their  bodily  forms  that  they 
are  tempted  to  think  overmuch  of  the  physical  rather 


76  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

than  the  spiritual  nature  of  human  beings.  Yet,  in  the 
last  analysis,  we  manifest  our  wisest  and  deepest  con- 
cerns for  the  physical  environment  of  humankind  in  so 
far  as  we  truly  appreciate  their  spiritual  backgrounds. 
Why  are  we  so  tremendously  interested  in  the  physical 
well-being  of  our  brothers  to-day?  Just  because  we 
are  growing  a  profounder  conception  of  brotherhood. 
But  brotherhood  is  essentially  spiritual ;  and  the  spirit- 
ual is  not  measured  in  terms  of  centuries  or  nations  or 
communities ;  it  is  not  old  or  young  or  little  or  large ;  it 
is  godlike — "the  breath  of  God  in  timeless  things." 
Human  brotherhood,  a  spiritual  reality,  is  bottomed 
upon  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  Realm  of  God  is 
rooted  in  His  Fatherhood.  Does  not  this  send  us 
straight  to  the  origin  of  the  Kingdom?  And  are  not 
the  coastal  regions  of  our  human  frontiers  so  much  in 
review  that  a  glimpse  of  our  spiritual  hinterlands 
proves  bracing  and  wholesome? 

A  second  reason  for  dwelling  upon  the  origin  of  the 
Kingdom  is  this:  The  big,  creative  souls  are  jealous 
lest  their  circumference  should  split  off  from  and  lose 
contact  with  their  center.  I  find  this  definite  centrality 
in  prophets  and  seers,  ancient  and  modern.  "Thine,  0 
Lord,"  says  David,  "is  the  greatness,  and  the  power, 
and  the  glory,  and  the  victory,  and  the  majesty:  for  all 
that  is  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  earth  is  Thine ;  Thine 
is  the  Kingdom,  0  Lord,  and  Thou  art  exalted  as  Head 
above  all."  Not  less  loftily  does  Isaiah  speak:  "Lift 
up  your  eyes  to  the  heavens,  and  look  upon  the  earth 
beneath ;  for  the  heavens  shall  vanish  away  like  smoke, 
and  the  earth  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment;  and  they 
that  dwell  therein  shall  die  in  like  manner;  but  My 
salvation  shall  be  forever,  and  My  righteousness  shall 
not  be  abolished."  Here  are  minds  that  have  crossed 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  77 

the  near  frontiers  of  being  to  dwell  in  the  far  yet  real 
hinterlands.  And  why?  Because,  to  keep  the  circum- 
ference of  their  being  true,  they  were  compelled  to  keep 
their  centrality  deep. 

Turning  from  the  ancients  to  the  moderns,  we  hear 
Immanuel  Kant  saying:  "Man  is  a  member  of  a  king- 
dom of  ends."  Yet  a  kingdom  of  ends  is  included  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  which  Hort  defines  as  "the  world  of 
invisible  laws  by  which  God  is  ruling  and  blessing  His 
creatures."  These  invisible  laws  are  a  world  within  a 
world,  "a  cosmos  within  a  cosmos;  they  come  direct 
from  Heaven  or  from  God."  Witness,  also,  the  words 
of  Josiah  Royce:  "Dogmatically,  then,  I  state  what, 
indeed,  if  there  were  time,  I  ought  to  expound  and 
defend  on  purely  rational  grounds.  God  and  His  world 
are  one.  And  this  unity  is  not  a  dead  natural  fact.  It 
is  the  unity  of  a  conscious  life,  in  which,  in  the  course 
of  infinite  time,  a  Divine  plan,  an  endlessly  complex 
and  yet  definitely  spiritual  idea,  gets  expressed  in  the 
lives  of  countless  finite  beings  and  yet  with  the  unity 
of  a  single  universal  life."  I  have  quoted,  as  you  see, 
from  these  prophets  and  seers  almost  at  random;  but 
remember  that  there  is  nothing  random  or  aimless  in 
the  course  of  their  thought.  It  flows,  as  Lotze  might 
say,  with  "the  unity  of  an  onward  marching  melody," 
because  it  trickles  down  from  fountains  high  up  among 
the  Everlasting  Hills. 


Originating  in  Heaven  or  with  God,  the  Kingdom 
has  a  history.  Just  here  the  sublime  Genesis  Hymn  of 
Creation  is  of  first  importance.  Very  noble  indeed  is 
this  high  and  august  major  music  which  has  been  too 


78  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

often  rendered  to  the  mechanical  accompaniment  of 
literalistic  minors.  Genesis  was  not  written  to  give  us 
a  science,  but  to  give  us  a  God.  And  in  that  far-off 
beginning  we  see  the  faint  outlines  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  in  its  unfolding  historic  continuity.  It  begins  with 
the  creation  of  the  earth,  comprising  its  various  orders 
and  epochs  to  the  birth  of  Man.  Think  of  the  count- 
less cycles  God  had  to  toil  in  making  the  earth  before  it 
could  be  inhabited  by  Man!  Then,  after  man's  com- 
ing, something  went  wrong.  Account  for  it  as  we  may, 
explain  it  scientifically,  psychologically,  philosophi- 
cally, or  theologically,  the  fact  is  something  went 
wrong!  All  through  the  centuries  men  have  described 
that  wrongness  by  one  tremendously  big  little  ugly 
word — sin.  Try  as  we  may,  the  word,  or  more  impor- 
tant still,  the  fact  behind  the  word,  will  not  rub  out. 
It  has  stained  the  soul  of  humanity  even  as  the  bloody 
drops  stained  the  hands  of  Lady  Macbeth.  Even  Dr. 
James  Martineau,  liberal  though  he  was,  is  profoundly 
orthodox  on  this  point.  "For  myself,"  he  says,  "I  can 
never  sit  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  yield  up  a  reverential 
heart  to  His  great  lessons,  without  casting  myself  on 
the  persuasion  that  God  and  evil  are  everlasting  foes ; 
that  never  and  for  no  end  did  He  create  it;  that  His 
will  is  utterly  against  it,  nor  ever  touches  it  but  with 
annihilating  force.  Any  other  view  appears  to  be  in- 
jurious to  the  characteristic  sentiments,  and  at  variance 
with  the  distinguishing  genius  of  Christian  morality." 
Yet,  notwithstanding  man's  tragic  mischoice,  the 
Kingdom  of  God  comes  on  apace.  "The  Giant  With 
the  Wounded  Heel"  goes  limping  down  the  years.  But 
as  he  limps  along  he  listens  and  hears  the  promise  of 
ultimate  victory :  "I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and 
the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed:  he 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  79 

shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel." 
Thus,  through  the  passing  ages,  we  see  the  developing 
purpose  of  God  handed  steadily  forward.  On  it  goes 
through  patriarchial,  Mosaic,  priestly,  kingly,  and  pro- 
phetic stages.  Like  a  subterranean  river,  it  flows 
through  Seth  to  Shem,  through  Shem  to  Terah's  fam- 
ily, narrowing  at  last  to  a  single  member  of  that  family 
in  the  person  of  Abraham;  then  through  Abraham  to 
the  Mosaic  theocracy;  then  on  to  the  Judges  and  the 
monarchy.  With  the  failure  of  the  monarchy  and  the 
education  gained  through  the  exile,  the  thought  begins 
to  dawn  upon  certain  souls  that  God  has  His  own 
King.  "By  Divine  revelation,"  says  Riehm,  "ideas  were 
planted  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  Israel,  so  lofty, 
and  rich,  and  deep,  that  in  the  existing  religious  con- 
dition they  could  never  see  their  perfect  realization; 
Ideas  which,  with  every  step  in  the  development  of  the 
religious  life  and  knowledge,  only  more  fully  disclosed 
their  own  depth  and  fullness,  and  to  look  to  the  future 
for  their  fulfillment."  Gradually  the  world-deep  lesson 
is  learned  that  the  God  of  Israel  is  also  the  God  of  all 
peoples.  Indeed,  there  are  few  more  instructive  chap- 
ters in  history  than  God's  use  of  the  particular  and  the 
universal.  He  is,  in  a  special  sense,  the  God  of  Israel ; 
but  He  is  the  God  of  Israel  only  that  He  may  better 
teach  that,  in  a  universal  sense,  He  is  the  God  of  the 
whole  earth.  And  while  this  special  education  of 
Israel  is  going  on,  God  is  being  sought  and  found  of  men 
everywhere ;  for  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons :  but  in 
every  nation  He  that  feareth  Him,  and  worketh  right- 
eousness, is  acceptable  to  Him." 

With  the  advent  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  there  begins,  of 
course,  a  new  epoch  in  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  "The  one  fact  which  stands  out  clear,"  says 


80  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

one  of  our  accredited  modern  authorities,  "is  that  in 
the  time  of  our  Lord  neither  Pharisee,  nor  Sadducee, 
nor  Essene,  had  any  hold  of  a  conception  of  the  King- 
dom which  answered  to  the  deep,  spiritual,  vital  import 
of  the  idea  in  the  Old  Testament."  So  Jesus  not  only 
recovered  the  High  Aim  of  God  from  misunderstanding 
and  falsehood ;  there  is  in  Him  a  distinct  advance,  his- 
torically speaking,  over  any  conception  which  had  pre- 
ceded Him.  Since  the  Incarnation,  have  not  men,  how- 
ever imperfectly,  been  trying  to  grasp  our  Lord's  sub- 
lime vision  of  the  Kingdom?  But  in  our  time  Chris- 
tians, I  verily  believe,  are  in  the  throes  of  this  eternal 
dynamic  as  never  before  in  history.  Therefore,  I  ask 
this  question:  Do  we  not  require  a  proper  emphasis 
and  focus  of  the  Kingdom  in  its  wholeness?  Thinking 
of  the  eccentricity  of  gifted  human  beings,  a  wise  man 
said,  with  a  note  of  despair:  Of  what  use  is  genius  if  its 
focus  be  a  little  too  short  or  a  little  too  long?  Syn- 
thetic thinking  upon  this  great  subject  will  assuredly 
help  to  relieve  us  of  the  antinomies,  antitheses,  and 
even  antipathies  so  often  connected  with  it.  Suppose 
we  attempt,  however  inadequately,  to  grasp  the  two 
aspects  of  the  one  truth  with  our  spiritual  and  mental 
fingers. 

1.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  Individual  and  Social 
It  is  not  individual  alone  nor  is  it  social  alone;  it  is 
both  at  once  and  the  same  time.  It  seems  very  diffi- 
cult for  many  to  give  a  just  balance  to  the  two  facts. 
We  either  divorce  them  altogether,  becoming  frankly 
individualistic  or  emphatically  socialistic;  or  else  we 
join  them  with  such  thin,  insufficient  thought-mortar 
that  they  refuse  to  make  a  solid  wall  in  the  building  of 
God.  To-day  we  are  convinced,  for  example,  that  the  . 
overemphasis  of  individualism  in  the  past  was  a  serious 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  81 

mistake.  Its  error  is  manifest  in  religion,  in  philosophy, 
in  education,  in  commerce,  and  in  politics.  Now  by 
way  of  contrast,  the  present  is  socialistic;  that  is,  the 
social  forces  of  mankind  are  operating  on  a  scale  un- 
equaled  in  the  past.  What,  then,  is  the  danger  of  the 
present  as  set  over  against  the  past?  Just  this:  That 
we  have  swung  to  the  other  extreme  and  insist  upon 
the  social  without  a  due  appreciation  of  the  individual. 
"I  am  sure,"  to  quote  Royce  again,  "that  whatever  is 
vital  in  Christianity  concerns  in  fact  the  relation  of  the 
real  individual  human  person  to  the  real  God."  In  the 
nature  of  the  case,  vast  mass  movements  tend  to  ob- 
scure this  truth. 

Nevertheless,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  individual  and 
social.  In  the  order  of  its  development,  it  comes  into 
the  individual  before  it  comes  into  the  community. 
"We  cannot  attempt  to  achieve  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
politically,"  says  A.  Glutton  Brock,  "until  it  is,  to  each 
one  of  us,  a  fact  of  our  own  experience,  the  pattern 
which  we  see  and  according  to  which  we  would  exercise 
the  common  will."  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  Chris- 
tianity is  a  wholesale  business  proceeding  upon  the 
retail  fashion.  Though  a  part  of  the  society  of  all 
souls,  every  soul  must  prove  God  for  itself.  All  men 
are  rooted  in  God,  as  Plato  thought,  yet  each  man  turns 
on  the  faucet  which  supplies  the  particular  sap  flowing 
into  and  making  his  own  individual  roots  vigorous, 
healthful,  and  a  strong  support  to  the  social  tree.  Yet 
why  should  there  be  a  false  emphasis  at  all?  The 
universe,  the  world,  and  civilization  are  every  moment 
illustrating  the  individual  and  social  phases  of  being 
itself.  Why,  then,  these  unnecessary  contrariants  of 
thought  and  action  in  dealing  with  the  Kingdom  of 
God?  Consider  two  simple  and  human  illustrations. 


82  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

In  northern  New  York  I  saw  a  French  Canadian  boy, 
who  is  a  victim  of  infantile  paralysis.  Born  and 
brought  up  in  a  cabin,  he  drags  his  crippled  body  about, 
while  his  companions  run  the  hilarious  ways  of  a  happy 
childhood.  But  a  Christian  man  took  the  boy  in  hand 
and  began  pouring  upon  him  showers  of  loving  care. 
He  was  placed  in  school  and  taught  to  operate  a  type- 
writer. Not  yet  can  his  twisted  fingers  grasp  pen  or 
pencil ;  nevertheless  I  have  a  poem  composed  and  type- 
written by  that  sorely  handicapped  lad;  for  already 
his  soul  is  bursting  into  spiritual  bloom.  Once  another 
lad  ran  away  from  his  palace  into  the  city  slums.  He 
was  a  prince,  dressed  in  a  velvet  suit.  Approaching  a 
ragged  boy  near  his  own  age,  he  began  talking  with 
him.  "Why  do  you  wear  such  dirty  clothes?"  he  asked. 
"Doesn't  your  nurse  buy  you  new  stockings  when  you 
get  a  hole  at  the  knee?  If  you're  hungry,  why  don't 
you  eat  your  dinner  instead  of  munching  that  crust?" 
"We  are  poor,"  the  ragged  child  answered  simply.  It 
was  the  first  time  the  child  of  the  palace  knew  that 
there  were  children  of  poverty.  When  he  was  found 
and  taken  back  home,  the  prince  said  to  his  father: 
"When  I  grow  up,  I  am  going  to  help  the  poor  children 
of  Belgium  to  become  more  prosperous."  And  he  kept 
his  word.  For  that  runaway  prince  became  Albert, 
King  of  the  Belgians.  "But,"  you  ask,  "what  have 
these  two  boys  to  do  with  the  Kingdom  of  God?" 
Much — very  much  indeed !  In  the  case  of  the  French 
Canadian  boy,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  individual ;  it  is 
in  the  heart  of  the  Christian  man  rescuing  the  child  as 
well  as  in  the  child  himself.  In  the  case  of  Albert,  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  social ;  it  is  symbolized  in  the  head 
of  a  modern  State,  as  well  as  in  the  soul  of  that  heroic 
people,  struggling  for  the  liberties  of  the  world.  Wher- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  83 

ever  righteousness  is  enthroned — industrially,  politi- 
cally, morally — the  Kingdom  of  God  is  individual  and 
social.  To  think  of  either  without  the  other  is  to  think 
misleadingly. 

2.  The  Kingdom  oj  God  is  Present  and  Future. 
Here,  again,  there  is  demand  for  spiritual  perspective. 
"The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you,  or  in  your  midst," 
said  Jesus.  Present  and  humanized  within  the  soul, 
wherever  the  King  is,  there  the  Kingdom  is  also.  But 
in  the  Master's  thought  the  Kingdom  has  a  future  as 
well  as  a  present  tense.  "When  the  Son  of  Man  shall 
come  in  His  glory,  and  all  the  angels  with  Hun,  then 
shall  He  sit  on  the  throne  of  His  glory :  and  before  Him 
shall  be  gathered  all  the  nations :  and  He  shall  separate 
them  one  from  another,  as  the  shepherd  separateth  the 
sheep  from  the  goats;  and  He  shall  set  the  sheep  on 
His  right  hand,  but  the  goats  on  the  left." 

Why  not,  therefore,  in  the  interests  of  truth — which 
is  more  important  than  even  the  most  diversified  em- 
phases of  truth — give  these  ideas  their  legitimate  set- 
ting and  articulation  in  our  thinking  and  doing?  For 
wherever  the  human  heart  is  in  tune  with  the  desire 
of  God,  the  Kingdom  is  present.  "I  was  made  a  red 
hot  Salvationist  by  an  infidel  lecturer,"  confessed  Wil- 
liam Booth.  "That  lecturer  said,  'If  I  believed  what 
some  of  you  Christians  believe,  I  would  never  rest  day 
nor  night  telling  men  about  it.'  "  WThere  are  the  red 
hot  souls  to-day?  Well,  wherever  they  are  the  fires  of 
the  Kingdom  are  burning.  Would  that  there  were 
more  of  them,  radiating  their  purifying  heats  into  the 
Church,  business,  and  society.  Are  not  kindled  souls 
among  God's  best  methods  of  starting  the  fires  of  right- 
eousness that  burn  up  the  chaff  in  politics  and  nations? 
"John  Wesley's  place  in  history,"  says  Woodrow  Wil- 


84  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

son,  "is  the  place  of  the  evangelist  who  is  also  a  master 
of  affairs.  The  evangelization  of  the  world  will  always 
be  the  road  to  fame  and  power,  but  only  to  those  who 
take  it  seeking,  not  these  things,  but  the  Kingdom  of 
God;  and  if  the  evangelist  be  what  John  Wesley  was, 
a  man  poised  in  spirit,  deeply  conversant  with  the 
natures  of  his  fellow-men,  studious  of  the  truth,  sober 
to  think,  prompt  and  yet  not  rash  to  act,  apt  to  speak 
without  excitement  and  yet  with  a  keen  power  of  con- 
viction, he  can  do  for  another  age  what  John  Wesley 
did  for  the  eighteenth  century.  His  age  was  singular 
hi  its  need,  as  he  was  singular  in  his  gifts  and  power. 
The  eighteenth  century  cried  out  for  deliverance  and 
light,  and  God  had  prepared  this  man  to  show  again 
the  might  and  the  blessing  of  His  salvation." 

Present  in  the  Christianized  personality,  the  King- 
dom is  also  future.  It  has  come,  it  is  coming,  it  will 
keep  on  coming,  until  "the  kingdoms  of  the  world  are 
become  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord,  and  His  Christ." 
Little  by  little,  nations  are  being  compelled  to  acknowl- 
edge the  wisdom  and  necessity  of  Christ's  way.  We 
are  learning  that  there  is  a  law  above  all  man-made 
laws.  Speaking  of  slavery,  Seward  said:  "Congress 
has  no  power  to  inhibit  any  duty  commanded  by  God 
on  Mount  Sinai  or  by  His  Son  on  the  Mount  of  Olives." 
Another  statesman,  with  a  world-vision  and  a  passion 
for  justice  among  all  peoples,  appeals  to  the  future  of 
the  ever-coming  Kingdom  as  he  hurls  himself  into  the 
present  battle  for  individual  and  social  righteousness. 
"Trust  your  guides,"  he  says,  "imperfect  as  they  are, 
and  some  day,  when  we  are  all  dead,  men  will  come  and 
point  at  the  distant  upland  with  a  great  shout  of  joy 
and  triumph  and  thank  God  that  there  were  men  who 
undertook  to  lead  in  the  struggle.  What  difference 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  86 

does  it  make  if  we  ourselves  do  not  reach  the  uplands? 
We  have  given  our  lives  to  the  enterprise.  The  world 
is  made  happier  and  humankind  better  because  we  have 
lived." 

3.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  Visible  and  Invisible. 
In  a  special  sense  is  it  visible  in  the  organized  and  uni- 
versal Church.  With  all  of  its  shortcomings,  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  stood  for  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
Master's  ideal  of  any  institution  in  history.  Indeed, 
was  it  not  founded  for  this  very  purpose?  And  all 
through  the  ages  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  has  not 
only  been  the  seed  of  the  Church,  but  that  crimson 
rain  has  watered  the  quickened  roots  of  civilization 
itself.  Visible  in  the  Church,  yet  the  Kingdom  is  as 
invisible  as  thought.  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not 
eating  and  drinking,"  says  Paul,  "but  righteousness  and 
peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  Were  nobler  words 
ever  inspired  by  a  more  seemingly  commonplace,  if  not 
ignoble,  situation?  The  little  Christian  community  in 
Rome  was  perturbed  over  a  question  of  diet.  Was  it 
right  to  eat  meat  or  forego  it?  To  observe  certain  days 
rather  than  others?  Then,  as  now,  there  was  a  kind  of 
conspiracy  to  overload  the  soul  with  "emphatic  trifles." 
Paul  hangs  the  subject  out  on  the  golden  line  of  Chris- 
tian privilege  and  lets  the  airs  of  Heaven  blow  through 
it.  Yes,  he  says,  it  is  one's  privilege  to  eat  meat  if  he 
wants  to.  But,  he  argues,  the  Kingdom  of  God  intro- 
duces the  soul  to  higher  rights  than  mere  personal 
privileges.  A  man  has  the  right  not  to  do  anything 
that  will  injure  a  human  being.  Men  are  not  greatly 
Christian  by  everlastingly  clamoring  for  their  rights. 
Men  have  the  right  not  to  take  their  rights.  Possessed 
by  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  these  have  made  the  great  ven- 
ture from  outward  advantage  to  inward  renunciation, 


86  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

wherein  life,  properly  speaking,  according  to  the  seer, 
can  only  be  said  to  begin.  Thus,  while  the  Realm  of 
God  is  rendered  visible  by  every  church  building,  every 
school  house,  and  every  institution  fostering  the  lib- 
erties of  mankind,  it  is  at  the  same  time  gloriously  in- 
visible— as  intangible  as  thought,  as  universal  as  air, 
as  still  and  deep  as  the  everliving  purpose  of  God. 

Here,  then,  are  a  few  implications  of  that  lofty  peti- 
tion, "Thy  Kingdom  come."  Originating  with  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ,  the  King- 
dom has  invaded  the  highways  and  byways  of  history. 
It  has  come — it  is  coming — it  will  come!  Let  this  be 
our  watchword  as  we  face  the  tasks  of  the  new  time. 
Let  us  cultivate  a  large  perspective  rather  than  a  lim- 
ited outlook.  Let  us  keep  the  Christian  focus,  laboring 
to  set  every  stone  of  truth  in  the  rising  temple  of  uni- 
versal righteousness.  As  it  took  a  golden  reed  to 
measure  the  Holy  City,  so  it  takes  a  golden  mind  to 
evaluate  the  Kingdom  of  God.  More  beautiful  than 
all  precious  stones,  its  walls  are  higher  than  all  heavens 
and  deeper  than  all  seas;  its  gates  are  not  twelve 
pearls,  but  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  vitalities, 
pulsing  eastward  and  northward  and  southward  and 
westward;  it  has  the  symmetry  of  a  living  cube,  for 
"the  length  and  the  breadth  and  the  height  thereof  are 
equal." 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT 

Jesus  therefore  took  the  loaves;  and  having  given 
thanks,  He  distributed  to  them  that  were  set  down. — 
John  vi.  11. 

THERE  is  a  sense  in  which  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel 
is  handicapped  by  the  greatness,  variety,  and  richness 
of  the  material  at  hand.  He  is  like  a  miner  suddenly 
come  upon  inexhaustible  diamond  mines,  and  yet  un- 
able to  market  the  precious  gems ;  like  a  farmer  driving 
a  lone  wagon  into  the  vast  wheatfields  of  the  West  for 
the  purpose  of  hauling  away  all  the  golden  grain ;  like 
a  child  bailing  out  the  Atlantic  with  its  tiny  bucket,  or 
scooping  up  the  sand  along  the  shore  with  its  toy  spade. 
The  Gospel  is  a  spiritual  diamond  mine,  an  infinite 
wheatfield,  a  measureless  ocean.  When  Jehovah  set 
the  machinery  of  the  physical  universe  in  motion,  He 
knew  that  it  would  wear  out;  but  when  He  revealed 
the  Gospel  as  the  savior  and  completer  of  the  human 
spirit,  He  knew  that  it  would  wear  on — wear  on  after 
the  universe  has  worn  out.  Little  wonder,  therefore, 
that  a  preacher  of  the  Everlasting  Gospel,  as  he  at- 
tempts to  draw  water  from  the  wells  of  salvation, 
should  sometimes  seem  to  hear  the  voice  of  an  Unseen 
Presence  at  his  side,  saying:  "Sir,  thou  hast  nothing 
to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep." 

Now,  this  sense  of  handicap  through  richness  of 
material  is  not  absent  from  the  Master's  miracle  of 
feeding  the  five  thousand.  For  example,  one  is  tempted 

87 


88  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

to  pause  and  make  a  sermon  on  the  curiosity-smitten 
multitude;  or,  upon  Jesus  ascending  the  mountain, 
where  "He  sat  with  His  disciples" ;  or,  upon  His  tender 
compassion  for  the  crowds  as  He  beheld  them  strug- 
gling up  the  mountain-side;  or,  upon  His  testing  of 
Philip,  whose  brain  was  an  automatic  cash-register, 
calculating  to  a  nicety  the  financial  resources  at  their 
command;  or,  upon  the  bleak  pessimism  of  Andrew, 
volunteering  information  about  the  lad  with  his  five 
barley  loaves  and  two  fishes,  and  then  adding:  "But 
what  are  these  among  so  many?"  or,  upon  the  lad 
himself,  whose  basket-meeting  lunch  became  the  live 
wire  along  which  the  currents  of  the  living  God  ex- 
tended frugality  into  overflowing  abundance,  and  of 
his  return  to  his  home  on  the  beach  that  night,  proudly 
telling  his  parents  that  he  had  been  the  hero  of  the 
occasion.  Seeing  that  all  these  things  are  here,  and 
fairly  packed  with  suggestiveness,  how  is  one  to  muster 
the  courage  to  march  straight  on  down  to  the  eleventh 
verse  before  stopping?  And  yet,  to  put  it  briefly  and 
bluntly,  that  is  precisely  what  I  have  done,  with  the 
view  of  emphasizing  a  phase  of  the  miracle  which  may 
prove  worthful  in  its  spiritual  and  personal  applica- 
tions. My  theme,  therefore,  is:  "The  Secret  of 
Spiritual  Enlargement,  and  Its  Accessories." 


Consider,  in  the  first  place,  the  abiding  secret  of 
spiritual  enlargement:  "Jesus  therefore  took  the 
loaves."  It  is  always  worth  while  to  note  the  "where- 
fores" and  "therefores"  of  the  New  Testament.  They 
may  have  a  rough  exterior,  but  their  heart  is  as  soft  as 
silk  and  as  rich  as  honey.  And  why  did  Jesus  "there- 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT  89 

fore"  take  the  loaves?  The  very  word  throws  us  back 
upon  the  moral  reasons  demanding  the  miracle.  Think 
of  the  men,  women,  children,  shepherds,  vinedressers, 
fishermen,  all  surging  up  the  mountain  toward  Christ ; 
think  of  Philip's  close-fisted,  hopeless  calculation; 
think  of  Andrew's  rank  pessimism;  think,  in  short,  of 
five  thousand  hungry  mouths  and  five  loaves  and  two 
fishes  with  which  to  feed  them,  coupled  with  the  de- 
spair of  His  own  disciples,  and  you  have  just  about  as 
difficult  a  situation  as  can  be  imagined.  But  just  here, 
breaks  in  the  light  and  the  flame  and  the  flash  and  the 
glory  of  this  prosaic  word,  Therefore !  Because  nothing 
else  was  to  be  done,  because  nothing  else  could  be  done, 
because  of  the  helplessness  of  the  multitude  and  the 
inadequacy  of  the  disciples'  resources,  "Jesus  therefore 
took  the  loaves." 

Now  what  did  Jesus  do?  Why,  He  took  the  loaves. 
"The  loaves/r  you  say,  "and  how  many  loaves  were 
there  to  take?"  Only  five — just  as  many  as  you  have 
fingers  on  your  hand!  And,  mark  you,  they  were 
not  loaves  such  as  your  baker  leaves  at  your  door  every 
morning:  they  were  five  meager,  coarse  barley  loaves, 
upon  which  the  veriest  pauper  of  to-day  would  soon 
starve  to  death.  "And  how  many  fish  were  there?" 
Just  two — the  same  number  of  eyes  that  you  have  in 
your  head  and  ears  on  the  sides  thereof!  "Well,  but 
that's  a  mighty  small  capital  to  commence  so  large  a 
spiritual  business  on!"  That  depends  entirely  on  who 
is  at  the  head  of  the  business.  If  you  and  I  are  at  the 
head  of  the  establishment,  unquestionably  it's  a  mighty 
small  capital.  But  if  the  Lord  God  Almighty,  Who 
sows  space  with  worlds  and  souls  with  goodness,  is 
backing  the  affair,  why  I  can't  see  that  spiritual  busi- 
ness is  dependent  upon  the  capital,  large  or  small,  but 


90  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

upon  the  Owner.  When  God's  creative  will  begins  to 
operate,  it  is  hardly  becoming  in  me  to  say  whether  He 
will,  or  will  not,  do  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing.  The 
lobes  of  the  human  brain  are  not  large  enough  to 
span  the  creative  purposes  and  processes  and  resources 
of  the  all-wise  God.  So  that,  if  on  the  present  occasion 
the  Son  of  God  deemed  it  necesary  to  actually  add  to 
the  sum  total  of  things,  to  the  storehouse  of  matter, 
and  "called  together  from  the  surrounding  air  the  ele- 
ments needed  for  the  purpose,  just  as  in  hushing  the 
storm  He  met  force  by  that  will  of  His  which  is  the 
ultimate  source  and  ground  of  all  force,"  I  should  not 
like  to  intimate  that  the  task  was  beyond  Him. 

But  a  question  of  commanding  and  immediate  im- 
portance is:  What  about  your  loaves  and  fishes? 
Not,  how  many  or  how  few,  but  in  whose  keeping  are 
they?  You  stand  at  one  end  of  them:  what  is  at  the 
other  end — space,  force,  doubt,  sin,  or — God?  Remem- 
ber: their  value  is  not  determined  by  their  quantity, 
but  by  your  getting  them  to  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
thereby  stamping  them  with  a  spiritual  quality.  As  I 
have  just  said,  that  lad  with  his  five  barley  loaves  and 
two  fishes  had  small  enough  capital  to  begin  a  great 
spiritual  business  on — no  doubt  about  it.  But  listen: 
If  he  had  had  only  one  crumb  of  one  loaf,  and  one  scale 
of  one  tail  of  one  fish  he  would  have  succeeded,  because 
the  God  of  loaves  and  fishes  was  on  his  side. 

And  what  is  true  of  your  individual  loaves  and  fishes 
—your  time,  your  capacity,  your  possessions— is  not 
less  true  of  the  Church.  At  the  hazard  of  being  com- 
monplace, I  ask  you:  What  is  the  Church,  anyway? 
A  man  says,  referring  to  his  local  organization:  "We 
have  a  great  church,  and  a  great  preacher,  also.  Why, 
he's  a  positive  wonder.  He  can  talk  on  anything."  I 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT  91 

go  to  see  this  "great  church,"  and,  sure  enough,  there  is 
a  magnificent  plant:  great  building,  great  wealth,  great 
organ,  great  singing,  great  display.  And  then,  as  a 
fitting  climax  to  this  "great  church,"  I  listen  to  its 
"great  preacher."  It  does  not  take  long  to  measure 
him.  The  man  was  right  when  he  said  he  could  "talk 
on  anything."  He  can  talk  on  anything — but  the 
Gospel!  But,  really,  is  it  a  "great  church"?  To  be 
perfectly  frank,  is  it  a  church  at  all?  Is  it  not  rather  a 
great  club,  run  for  personal  and  social  reasons,  with  a 
few  charitable  organizations  tacked  on?  At  any  rate, 
it  is  not  that  divine  bulwark  against  which  Christ  said 
the  gates  of  hell  should  not  prevail.  Ah,  no!  The 
gates  of  lust,  the  gates  of  fashion,  the  gates  of  pride, 
the  gates  of  envy,  the  gates  of  jealousy — all  these  iron 
gates  of  hell  do  prevail  against  this  poor,  tinsel,  gilt, 
powdered,  Christless  thing. 

What,  then,  is  the  Church?  According  to  our  Master 
Christ,  the  Church  is  a  company  of  faith-intoxicated 
men  and  women,  who,  though  living  and  toiling  upon 
earth,  are  able  to  bring  things  to  pass  in  the  upper 
galaxies  of  the  universe.  Listen:  "Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  What  things  soever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  Heaven;  and  what  things  soever  ye  shall 
loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  Heaven."  Moreover, 
according  to  Christ,  not  only  shall  the  Church's  deci- 
sions be  ratified  in  the  courts  of  God,  but  the  Church's 
requests,  when  agreed  upon,  shall  be  granted.  Listen : 
"Again  I  say  unto  you,  that  if  two  of  you  shall  agree 
on  earth  as  touching  anything  that  they  shall  ask,  it 
shall  be  done  for  them  of  my  Father  Who  is  in 
Heaven."  Furthermore,  not  only  are  the  Church's 
decisions  ratified  in  Heaven,  and  not  only  are  the 
Church's  petitions  granted  by  the  Father  of  our  Lord 


92  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

and  Savior,  but  wherever  two  or  three  spirits  are  united 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  there  is  the  Church  of  the 
living  God.  Listen:  "For  where  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together  in  My  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst 
of  them."  Wherever  Christ  is,  whether  there  be  two, 
three,  or  ten  thousand  hearts,  there  is  the  Church ;  and 
where  Christ  is  not,  there  is  no  Church — that,  as  I 
understand  it,  is  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament. 

Is  it  not  plain,  my  brethren,  that  the  secret  of 
spiritual  enlargement  lies  in  our  getting  ourselves,  our 
dear  ones,  our  unsaved  brothers,  our  possessions,  to  the 
Christ  of  God?  We  cannot  do  spiritual  business  with- 
out Him.  We  have  tried  it  too  long  and  failed  too 
often.  If  only  we  yield  our  lives  into  His  hand,  what 
before  stood  for  a  pinch  of  poverty  and  a  tithe  of 
efficiency  shall  become  the  wealth  of  Heaven  and  the 
power  of  God. 


I  pass  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  second  thought 
suggested  by  my  text:  The  accessories  of  spiritual 
enlargement.  They  are  three — thanksgiving,  distribu- 
tion, multiplication.  Let  us  take  them  in  order. 

"Jesus  therefore  took  the  loaves;  and  having  given 
thanks" — let  us  pause,  bow  down,  and  worship  just 
here.  With  Professor  Dods,  "one  would  fain  have 
heard  the  words  in  which  Jesus  addressed  the  Father, 
and  by  which  He  caused  all  to  feel  how  near  to  each 
was  infinite  resource" ;  but  even  more  important  than 
His  words  on  this  and  every  occasion  was  our  Lord's 
attitude  toward  things,  toward  persons — in  a  word, 
toward  life.  And  what  was  that  attitude?  It  was  the 
attitude  of  thanksgiving.  The  august  reverence,  the 
beautiful  holiness,  the  majestic  sanctities  with  which 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT  93 

Christ  invested  all  life — these  compel  me,  as  I  walk 
through  the  Gospel  Gardens,  to  take  the  shoes  from  off 
my  feet  lest  I  should  dash  the  divine  dew  from  the 
petals  of  the  roses  which  Christ's  stainless  fingers  have 
set  in  the  soil  of  the  soul.  Everywhere,  all  the  time,  I 
find,  in  Christ,  this  golden  music  flowing  out  from  the 
central,  inner  harmonies  of  life  and  the  universe: 
thanksgiving  for  the  wayside  flower,  thanksgiving  for 
the  beaming  sun,  thanksgiving  for  the  silver  rain, 
thanksgiving  for  the  homely  crust,  thanksgiving  for 
the  humble  task,  thanksgiving  for  the  unlovely  life 
still  retaining  the  possibility  of  being  touched  by  the 
power  of  the  endless  life,  and  thereby  raised,  aug- 
mented, multiplied  into  the  life  of  God. 

But  you  say:  "I  am  a  practical  man.  What  has 
Christ's  attitude  toward  life  to  do  with  me?"  I  answer : 
"The  attitude  which  you  allow  Christ  to  sustain  toward 
you  determines  your  attitude  toward  life  and  the  uni- 
verse, also."  When  a  thankless  spirit  resides  at  the 
center  of  a  man's  nature,  the  loaves  and  fishes  of  life 
are  received  with  haughty  disdain,  his  normal  mood; 
but  when  they  are  cut  off  altogether,  the  same  thank- 
less spirit  will  utter  curses  as  bitter  as  the  waters  of 
Marah.  Mistake  not  this  conclusion!  A  man  devoid 
of  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving  must,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  live  a  narrow  life  at  its  best ;  but  when  that  life 
arrives  at  its  worst,  believe  me,  his  thankless  spirit  is 
turned  in  a  blazing,  blistering  flame  of  hell  to  torture 
him. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  emulate  our  Lord  in  the 
spirit  of  thankfulness,  we  find  our  souls  crying  aloud 
with  Charles  Kingsley :  "Every  creature  of  God  is  good 
if  it  be  sanctified  with  prayer  and  thanksgiving!  This 
to  me  is  the  master  truth  of  Christianity!  I  cannot 


94  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

make  people  see  it,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it  was  to 
redeem  man  and  the  earth  that  Christ  was  made  man 
and  used  the  earth."  And  how  did  Christ  use  the 
earth?  Always  in  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving,  even 
though  the  earth  smote  Him  to  the  death  with  its  cruel, 
brutal  blows.  And  what  is  the  attitude  of  one  soul 
united  to  other  souls  in  Jesus  Christ?  Let  the  great 
apostle,  one  of  the  supreme  spirits  in  the  majestic 
universe  of  souls,  make  answer:  "For  what  thanks- 
giving can  we  render  again  unto  God  for  you,  for  all 
the  joy  wherewith  we  joy  for  your  sakes  before  our 
God ;  night  and  day  praying  exceedingly  that  we  may 
see  your  face,  and  may  perfect  that  which  is  lacking  in 
our  faith?"  With  genuine  pathos  a  dear,  octogenarian 
pilgrim  told  me  this  story.  He  said  he  had  just  read, 
before  my  call,  of  a  poor  woman  who  came  to  her 
humble  home  after  a  hard  day's  work.  Soon  she  sat 
down  to  a  table  upon  which  there  was  a  single  crust 
and  a  cup  of  water.  Notwithstanding  the  direness  of 
her  poverty,  she  bowed  her  head  and  asked  her  Unseen 
Host  in  tones  of  gratitude :  "Well,  have  I  got  all  this, 
and — Jesus  Christ?"  And  once  again  the  words  of  the 
wise  man  came  winging  and  singing  down  the  cen- 
turies :  "Better  is  little  with  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  than 
great  treasure  and  trouble  therewith.  Better  is  a  din- 
ner of  herbs  where  love  is,  than  a  stalled  ox  and  hatred 
therewith." 

The  second  accessory  of  spiritual  enlargement  is 
distribution:  "And  having  given  thanks,  he  distrib- 
uted." Of  course!  That  is  what  the  Master  was 
always  doing:  distributing  life,  distributing  light,  dis- 
tributing health,  distributing  hope,  distributing  com- 
fort, distributing  peace,  distributing  joy.  And  this  law 
of  Christian  distribution  has  never  been  repealed.  It 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT  95 

is  embedded  deep  down  in  the  constitution  of  things. 
Undistributed  activity  or  energy  of  any  kind  either 
diminishes  or  explodes.  It  must  either  attain  the 
highest  reaches  of  life  or  the  lowest  abodes  of  death. 
In  no  realm  is  the  law  more  steadfast  and  undeviating 
than  the  spiritual.  Because  he  belongs  to  the  Lord  of 
Life,  the  Christian  is  a  distributing  center  of  life.  "Ye 
did  not  choose  Me,  but  I  chose  you,  and  appointed  you, 
that  ye  should  go  and  bear  fruit,  and  that  your  fruit 
should  abide." 

Let  me  repeat  it  again:  first  and  supremely,  the 
Christian  is  a  distributing  center  of  life.  Everything 
else  is  secondary.  All  other  attainments  count  for 
nought  in  comparison.  Let  me  see  if  I  can  make  you 
grasp  my  thought.  I  know  three  men — men  of  inter- 
national reputation.  Two  are  Americans,  one  an  Eng- 
lishman, all  are  preachers.  I  was  discussing  with  one 
of  the  Americans  the  other  two.  "What  do  you  think 
of  Dr.  Jones,  of  Boston?"  Said  he:  "Dr.  Jones  is  a 
great  philosopher.  Philosophy  is  his  passion ;  but  Jones 
doesn't  love  men."  "And  what  do  you  think  of  Dr. 
Smith,  of  London?"  "Well,  Smith  is  somewhat  of  a 
puzzle.  His  theological  coat,  like  Joseph's,  seems  to  be 
of  many  colors.  I  would  say  that  Smith  has  a  passion 
for  truth,  as  he  understands  truth,  but  he  doesn't  love 
men."  Now,  the  words  of  my  friend's  estimate  of  his 
fellow  workers  which  still  ring  in  my  soul  are  these: 
"But  he  doesn't  love  men."  Let  no  man  depreciate  the 
scholar,  the  philosopher,  the  searcher  after  truth :  each 
has  his  place  in  the  temple  of  humanity  and  the  Church 
of  God.  But  until  the  scholar,  the  philosopher,  the 
theorist  has  been  made  over  into  the  Lover  of  Men, 
until  he  has  a  Brain  within  his  brain,  a  Heart  within 
his  heart,  a  Spirit  within  his  spirit — until,  in  a  word, 


96  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

he  becomes  a  distributing  center  of  the  life  of  God,  he 
cannot  invade  and  conquer  those  vast  and  mighty 
spiritual  realms  where,  and  where  only,  is  to  be  found 
the  life  that  is  life  indeed. 

The  third  accessory  of  spiritual  enlargement,  as  sug- 
gested by  my  text,  is  multiplication.  And  this,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  in  suggestiveness  the  uniquest  phase  of  the 
miracle.  Go  back  for  a  moment  to  our  base  of  sup- 
plies— five  loaves  and  two  fishes.  They  are  brought  to 
Christ,  blessed  by  Christ,  distributed  by  Christ,  and 
now  comes  the  question:  When  were  they  multiplied 
into  the  abundance  which  satisfied  the  hungry  thou- 
sands? Ah!  it  is  a  great  lesson,  an  essential  lesson,  a 
lesson  we  need  to  learn  better  and  better:  those  loaves 
and  fishes  were  multiplied  in  the  distribution.  While 
the  distribution  was  going  on, — not  before  nor  after- 
ward,— the  figures  in  God's  multiplication  table  were 
expressing  the  resource  of  the  infinities  and  eternities 
of  the  spiritual,  and  Heaven's  groaning  table  was 
spread  in  the  desert. 

By  way  of  application,  in  closing,  let  me  remind  you 
that  it  is  just  so  our  own  loaves  and  fishes  are  multi- 
plied. Undistributed,  they  will  forever  remain  the 
petty,  puny,  miscroscopic  two  and  five.  Distributed 
among  hungry,  aching  lives,  they  shall  be  multiplied 
by  the  thousands,  and  at  last  only  angelic  mathema- 
ticians shall  be  able  to  gather  up  the  unwasted  re- 
mainders and  appraise  their  limitless  valuations.  What 
is  it  but  the  eternal  law  of  the  eternal  Christ :  "Give, 
and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you;  good  measure,  pressed 
down,  shaken  together,  running  over,  shall  they  give 
into  your  bosom."  Have  you  gold?  Have  you  brain? 
Have  you  brawn?  Have  you  faith?  Have  you  hope? 
Have  you  love?  Get  them  multiplied  through  distri- 


SPIRITUAL  ENLARGEMENT  97 

bution.  And  begin  now !  The  heart-throbs  are  pound- 
ing down  your  bodily  house ;  the  brain  cells  are  wearing 
out;  the  blood-vessels  are  being  emptied,  never  again 
to  overflow  with  their  rich,  red  currents.  But  you! — 
you  and  I  are  hastening  on  to  other  spheres  of  activity. 
Let  us  leave  behind  those  indestructible  forces  of 
influence  and  character  through  which  God  can  move 
and  work  after  we  have  been  in  Heaven  beholding 
God's  face  for  a  thousand  years.  I  beseech  you,  in  the 
name  of  that  Christ  Who  is  ready  to  judge  the  quick 
and  the  dead,  invest  your  gold  in  ragged  bodies,  invest 
your  bread  in  hungry  bodies,  invest  your  love  in  hungry 
hearts,  and  you  shall  be  exalted  into  those  spiritual 
affinities  and  relationships  which  yield  increasing  satis- 
factions forever  and  ever! 


THE  THANKFUL  HEART 

For  all  things  are  for  your  sakes,  that  the  grace,  being 
multiplied  through  the  many,  may  cause  the  thanks- 
giving to  abound  unto  the  glory  of  God. — II.  Cor.  iv.  15. 

THE  Bible  is  like  a  melodious  steeple  set  with  thanks- 
giving chimes.  The  variations  of  the  tune  are  many, 
the  spirit,  the  tune  itself,  is  one.  Hearken  to  the  music 
of  these  Scriptural  bells !  They  ring  out  gloriously,  and 
they  ring  out  unceasingly  as  well.  To  whom  shall  our 
thanksgiving  be  offered?  Unto  God,  our  Heavenly 
Father.  Through  whom  shall  it  be  made?  Why, 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  What  are  the  reasons 
for  thanksgiving?  Well,  all  our  gifts  are  from  God — 
our  temporal  benefits,  our  daily  providences,  our  un- 
failing guidance,  our  immortal  hopes.  What  are  some 
of  the  forms  of  expressing  gratitude  to  the  Giver  of 
every  good  and  perfect  gift?  Worship,  prayer,  offer- 
ings, and  praises.  These  are  just  a  few  of  the  thanks- 
giving chimes  that  ring  in  the  Bible  tower. 

Now,  the  player  of  the  chimes  in  our  text  needs  no 
introduction.  He  is  well  known  in  Heaven  and  on 
earth.  This  old  master  of  spiritual  symphonies  is  never 
better  than  in  his  rendering  of  thanksgiving  music. 
For  Paul  was  a  great  thanks-giver  because  he  was  a 
great  thanks-liver.  It  is  this,  I  am  sure,  that  gave  him 
such  a  vast  conception  of  the  grace  of  gratitude.  "For 
all  things  are  for  your  sakes!" — think  of  the  immensity 
of  Christian  privilege  in  the  words! — "that  the  grace, 


THE  THANKFUL  HEART  99 

being  multiplied  through  the  many,  may  cause  the 
thanksgiving  to  abound  unto  the  glory  of  God" — think 
of  the  solemn  responsibility  of  so  using  all  things  that 
our  thanksgiving  may  glorify  God !  Surely  the  genius 
of  the  thankful  heart  is  the  highest  quality  of  genius — 
life  expressing  itself  in  the  very  noblest  terms. 

"For  all  things  are  for  your  sakes!"  Without  at- 
tempting to  compass  the  inclusiveness  of  this  thanks- 
giving paBan,  let  us  consider  a  few  things  which  will  stir 
the  thankful  heart. 


This  American  country  of  ours  should  make  every 
heart  throb  with  gratitude  to  Almighty  God.  Think  of 
its  natural  resources!  Think  of  its  boundless  plains! 
Think  of  its  fertile  valleys !  Think  of  its  hills,  moun- 
tains, streams,  rivers,  lakes,  and  oceans!  Indeed,  our 
crop  reports  furnish  a  very  tangible,  if  quite  immeas- 
urable, illustration  of  the  fertility  of  our  country.  One 
Sunday  morning  I  walked  across  the  Manhattan 
Bridge.  Always  interesting,  this  walk  is  never  more 
satisfactory  than  in  the  sweet  dawn  of  God's  own  holy 
day.  The  spell  of  October  was  over  all — the  rich-tinted 
leaves;  the  shocks  of  corn,  those  golden  tabernacles  of 
the  autumntide;  the  robins,  whose  faded,  tattered 
breasts  told  of  their  approaching  flight  southward  to 
exchange  their  old  garments  for  bright,  fresh  new  ones  ; 
the  melancholy  expression  brooding  upon  human  faces 
— everywhere  the  October  magician  had  left  his  mystic 
touch. 

Well,  I  thought  that  dense  forest  of  skyscrapers 
never  looked  more  splendid  than  on  that  Sabbath 
morning  from  the  high  arched  bridge.  They  looked 


100  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

massive  and  high  enough,  too.  But  after  seeing  that 
picture  showing  what  would  happen  to  those  sky- 
scrapers if  our  mammoth  grain  crop  should  be  dumped 
in  and  on  and  up  and  over  them,  I  admire  the  vast 
buildings  not  less,  but  the  marvelous  productiveness  of 
our  farms  more.  Three  billion  bushels  of  corn !  What 
cribs  can  hold  them?  Seven  hundred  and  fifty  million 
bushels  of  wheat!  What  granaries  can  contain  them? 
One  billion  four  hundred  million  bushels  of  oats !  What 
bins  are  large  enough  for  them?  Two  hundred  and 
forty  million  bushels  of  barley,  rye,  and  buckwheat! 
Why,  here  is  material  to  make  pancakes  for  the  uni- 
verse! In  round  numbers,  the  plow,  the  harrow,  the 
hoe,  and  the  threshing  machine  have  coaxed  five  billion 
five  hundred  million  bushels  of  grain  from  American 
soil  hi  a  single  year.  It  is  stupendous,  amazing,  incal- 
culable! Why,  if  the  American  farmer  should  empty 
his  sacks  upon  Park  Row,  Broadway,  and  Wall  Street, 
immediate  suffocation  would  set  in.  For  he  would 
literally  engulf  beneath  his  pile  of  grain  the  Stock 
Exchange,  the  thirty-nine-story  Bankers'  Trust  Build- 
ing, the  forty-one-story  Singer  Building,  Wall  Street 
with  all  its  buildings,  lower  Broadway  with  all  its 
buildings,  Bowling  Green,  the  Custom  House,  the  Bat- 
tery, the  North  River  piers,  and  the  docks  of  South 
Street — every  single  one  would  be  actually  buried  from 
sight,  if  the  American  farmer  should  spill  his  grain 
treasure  over  this  particular  area  of  real  estate ! 

The  fact  is,  the  output  is  so  immense  as  to  surpass 
the  powers  of  imagination.  But  we  ought  certainly  to 
include  the  fecundity  of  our  soil  among  the  "all  things" 
that  "are  for  your  sakes."  Moreover,  we  ought  to 
acknowledge  our  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  American 
farmer.  The  whole  world  is  his  debtor.  He  is  greater 


THE  THANKFUL  HEART  101 

than  any  ruler,  or  potentate,  or  emperor,  or  king,  or 
president,  or  general  that  ever  lived.  The  farmer  gives 
us  our  wardrobe.  Witness  the  sheep  on  a  thousand 
hills!  The  farmer  fills  our  meat  chest.  Witness  the 
lowing  herds  on  oceanlike  plains!  The  farmer  alone 
makes  it  possible  for  the  great  business  of  national 
housekeeping  to  go  on.  Let  the  farmer  die,  and  crepe 
as  black  as  midnight  would  hang  on  America's  front 
door.  Some  men  may  die  and  not  be  greatly  missed; 
but  let  the  American  farmer  die,  and  there  will  be  a 
nation-wide  funeral.  But  he  is  not  going  to  die.  He  is 
going  to  do  something  far  harder  and  grander  and 
nobler.  He  is  going  to  live,  and  out  of  his  industry  and 
toil  and  sacrifice  this  nation  will  witness  a  new  birth 
of  integrity  and  simplicity  and  devotion  to  the  causes 
that  make  for  national  righteousness.  All  honor  to 
this  horny-handed,  wind-smitten,  sun-burned  hero! 
We  thank  him  for  the  soil  he  vexes,  for  the  crops  he 
raises,  for  the  virtues  that  thrive  in  the  garden  of  his 
heart,  for  the  sons  and  daughters  he  rears,  for  the  God 
he  worships! 


A  second  thing  for  which  right-thinking  people  are 
thankful  is  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  which  an 
apostle  describes  as  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth. 
It  is  well,  now  and  then,  to  go  back  to  fundamental 
things,  to  discover,  in  the  midst  of  a  world  where  flux 
and  change  and  decay  are  vigorously  at  work,  what  are 
the  foundations  of  ultimate  reality.  In  his  masterful 
work  on  "The  Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury," the  author  leads  us  back,  century  by  century,  to 
Plato  and  beyond.  But  the  church  of  God  goes  back 


102  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

beyond  Plato,  beyond  Isaiah,  beyond  David,  beyond 
Moses — back  to  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  himself. 

"My  church!"  God's  Church,  Christ's  Church— no 
man's  church,  and  no  sect's  church — that  is  why  hell 
and  all  its  myrmidons  must  fall  back  before  its  terrible 
might !  Do  you  believe  in  gravity?  Then  this  truth  is 
as  sure  as  gravity.  Do  you  believe  in  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  the  tides?  Then  the  moon  does  not  sway  the  tides 
more  certainly  than  that  the  truth  of  Christ's  words 
shall  finally  sway  the  hearts  of  men.  Indeed,  is  it  not 
high  time  Christian  people  throughout  the  world  were 
getting  a  new  vision  of  the  assured  triumph  of  the 
Christian  Church?  Again  and  again  her  altars  have 
been  forsaken;  the  people  have  perished  for  lack  of 
vision ;  quacks  of  every  conceivable  stripe  have  traded 
upon  the  by-products  of  Christianity ; -multitudes  have 
bowed  before  pagan  gods  and  burned  strange  fire  upon 
the  altars  of  the  Most  High;  but  always,  sooner  or 
later,  the  God  of  Jesus  Christ  has  shaken  the  founda- 
tions of  false  religions  and  true,  and  after  the  divine 
earthquake  was  over,  the  floors  and  walls  and  windows 
and  towers  of  the  Christian  Church  stood  forth  more 
gloriously  than  ever  before. 

Meantime,  there  are  two  essential  things  that  Chris- 
tian people  should  do.  The  first  is  this:  They  must 
quit  apologizing  for  the  Gospel.  They  must  proclaim  it 
in  love  and  with  unvarnished  sincerity;  and  they  can 
do  this  only  as  the  power  of  the  Gospel  is  allowed  to 
create  and  sustain  their  own  souls  in  good  works.  Our 
need  to-day,  my  brethren,  is  not  expert  apologetics;  we 
need  original,  first-hand  practitioners,  experiencers,  if 
you  will,  of  the  unspeakable  things  of  God  in  Christ. 
I  mean  no  criticism  of  legitimate  apologetics.  I  mean, 
rather,  that  we  have  dissected  so  much  that  the  dis- 


THE  THANKFUL  HEART  103 

sector  needs  rest.  He  has  exhausted  himself.  He 
needs  a  retreat,  a  hospital,  some  place  where  he  can  be 
quiet  and  visionful  enough  to  see  that  this  patient 
named  the  Gospel  was  never  really  sick  at  all,  that  he  is 
the  real  invalid  in  need  of  spiritual  convalescence. 
These  physicians  have  found  that  they  cannot  heal 
themselves,  and  their  only  hope  of  salvation  is  in  the 
very  thing  that  they  have  been  "scientifically"  cutting 
to  pieces.  It  is  a  glorious  time  for  men  who  really 
believe  in  Christ  to  assert  themselves.  Away  with  our 
timid  guessings!  Away  with  our  analytic  question- 
ings! Away  with  our  joyless  religion!  Let  us  give  the 
Gospel  a  chance,  and  be  thankful  to  its  Author  that  we 
have  such  a  Gospel  to  be  deeply  thankful  for ! 

We  are  not  only  to  stop  apologizing  for  the  Gospel, 
but  the  Christian  Church  must  do  another  thing:  It 
must  cease  its  unworthy  competition  with  the  world. 
Be  assured  of  this — the  world  will  never  be  converted 
to  Christ  by  adopting  worldly  methods.  In  every  age 
when  the  Church  has  adopted  such  methods,  the  world 
has  invariably  and  heartily  despised  the  Church.  Pat- 
ting the  church  on  the  back  with  one  hand,  it  has 
thrust  a  hidden  dagger  into  its  inmost  heart  with  the 
other.  No ;  the  world  does  not  need,  and  the  world  will 
not  accept,  what  is  glibly  called  an  up-to-date  Gospel. 
I  am  frank  to  say  that  I  need  a  dateless,  eternal  Gospel; 
and  that  is  what  every  man  needs,  what  the  whole 
world  needs,  what  all  may  have,  and  do  have,  in  the 
fathomless  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God.  Now,  if  the 
genius  of  the  world  is  capable  of  creating  the  content 
of  the  Gospel,  then  the  Gospel  is  a  misnomer;  but  just 
because  "the  world  through  its  wisdom  knew  not  God, 
it  was  God's  good  pleasure  through  the  foolishness  of 
the  thing  preached  to  save  them  that  believe."  Never 


104  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

was  this  more  profoundly  true  than  in  our  own  age. 
For,  with  all  our  cleverness,  we  are  no  match,  either  in 
intellectual  strength  or  philosophic  subtlety,  for  the 
Greek  mind  to  which  Paul  spoke.  Thus,  while  modern 
Jews  are  asking  for  signs,  and  while  modern  Greeks 
seek  after  wisdom,  let  us,  in  the  name  of  Paul's  God, 
preach  Christ  crucified,  though  he  be  a  stumbling 
block  unto  Jews  and  foolishness  unto  Gentiles;  for 
unto  them  that  are  called,  both  Jews  and  Greeks, 
Christ  is  at  once  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of 
God. 

The  thankful  heart  will  not  overlook  the  Christian 
Church.  Its  toil  and  tears  and  substance  will  be  con- 
secrated to  her  service.  In  the  best  and  broadest  and 
deepest  sense — and  I  am  measuring  my  words — no  man 
is  a  good  citizen,  a  good  father,  or  a  good  patriot;  no 
woman  is  a  good  mother,  a  good  wife,  or  a  good  neigh- 
bor who  belittles  the  Christian  Church ;  and  no  son,  no 
daughter  is  worthy  of  inheriting  the  privileges  of  this 
republic  who  lays  profane  hands  of  scorn  and  skepti- 
cism upon  that  Ark  of  the  Covenant  named  the  Church 
of  God.  Those  who  practice  the  new  persecution  of 
neglect  and  indifference  toward  the  Church  will  one  day 
confess:  "I  am  not  worthy  to  be  called  citizen  or 
disciple,  because  I  persecuted  the  Church  of  God." 

in 

But  I  must  especially  mention  the  home-makers. 
Of  all  the  people  who  are  placing  heavenly  mortgages 
upon  the  to-morrows  of  life,  the  Christian  mothers  are 
foremost.  They  shape  the  future  for  God  and  human- 
ity by  shaping  their  children  according  to  high  ideals. 
Our  mothers  are  the  most  potent  people  in  the  world 


THE  THANKFUL  HEART  106 

to-day.  We  do  not  underestimate  the  work  of  the 
statesmen,  the  physicians,  the  ministers,  the  bankers, 
the  educators,  for  we  are  all  workers  together;  but  we 
cannot  overestimate  the  importance  of  the  mothers. 
Tell  me  what  a  nation's  mothers  are,  and  I  will  tell  you 
what  the  nation  itself  is.  God  has  indeed  called 
motherhood  to  awful  responsibility;  and  the  majority 
of  mothers,  I  like  to  think,  are  accepting,  in  fine  sin- 
cerity and  holy  joy,  the  significance  of  their  call.  Oh, 
I  like,  at  this  Thanksgiving  season,  to  think  with  grate- 
ful heart  of  the  humble  women  whose  fame  is  not  great 
on  earth,  but  who  are  well  known  in  those  radiant  and 
invisible  spheres  where  earth's  shadows  are  never  cast. 
No  blocks  of  marble  do  they  round  into  statues;  no 
canvases  do  they  adorn  with  glowing  colors;  no  books 
do  they  write  with  scholarly  taste;  no  music  do  they 
compose  with  sweet  strains;  no  platforms  do  they 
occupy  with  persuasive  speech.  Yet  are  they  all  these, 
and  more,  because  they  are  God's  disciples  of  the 
unexplored  and  the  unexpressed.  Sculptors,  they  chisel 
the  veined  marble  of  flesh  and  blood  into  living, 
breathing,  human  statues ;  artists,  they  paint  the  colors 
of  righteousness  on  undying  souls ;  authors,  they  write 
the  literature  of  godliness  on  the  hearts  of  their  sons ; 
musicians,  they  sing  the  white  song  of  chastity  into  the 
souls  of  their  daughters;  orators,  their  lives  speak  so 
eloquently  of  the  invisible  things  of  God  that,  after 
quitting  the  world,  they,  being  dead,  speak  on  from  the 
high  places  of  eternity.  So,  to-day,  we  chant  the 
beauty  of  these  mothering  lives  which,  like  angel- 
watered  lilies,  grow  close  to  God,  and  are  quiet,  some- 
tunes  quaint,  and  .always  queenly. 

Look  about  you,  then,  and  within  you,  and  beneath 
you,  and  above  you,  and  you  will  be  sure  to  find  many 


106  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

things  which  will  fit  in  with  the  liturgy  of  the  thankful 
heart.  We  should  be  grateful  for  the  heavenly  hurts 
which  leave  no  scars,  for  the  celestial  benedictions 
which  drop  upon  us  in  dark  disguise.  Some  one  has 
said  that  Francis  Thompson,  like  Lamb,  was  "called  by 
sorrow  and  anguish  and  in  strange  desolation  of  hopes 
into  quietness,  and  a  soul  set  apart  and  made  peculiar 
to  God."  I  saw  a  strong  man  kissing  the  cheek  of  his 
dead  old  father,  venerable  with  years  and  wealthy  with 
invisible  gold.  Turning  away,  the  son  said,  half 
musing:  "I  wonder  if  father  is  not  already  young 
again,  and  if  he  has  not  lost  even  the  memory  of  his 
terrible  pain."  Yes,  I  think  we  go  to  the  Land  where 
we  grow  younger  the  longer  we  stay,  and  where,  also, 
the  younger  we  grow  in  the  youth  of  immortality  the 
more  heavenly  wise  and  the  more  soulfully  healthy  we 
become.  Give  your  hearts  to  God,  then!  He  will 
answer  your  hard  questions,  give  you  joy  for  sorrow, 
peace  for  pain,  hope  for  despair,  and  love  that  knows 
no  measure.  And  when  life's  school  is  out,  and  your 
lessons  have  been  learned,  you  will  run  shouting  and 
singing  home  to  the  outstretched  arms  of  God,  Who 
will  solve  your  intricate  problems,  illumine  your  dark 
mysteries,  and  wipe  away  your  tears.  For  all  things 
are  for  your  sakes — all  true  teachers,  whether  Paul,  or 
Apollos,  or  Cephas ;  all  wondrous  schoolrooms,  whether 
the  world,  or  life,  or  death;  all  hopes  and  all  experi- 
ences, whether  things  present,  or  things  to  come;  all 
are  yours,  if  you  are  Christ's,  because  Christ  is  God's, 
and  nothing  shall  be  able  to  separate  you  from  his  love. 
Ring  out,  then,  your  happy  bells  of  gratitude,  ring  them 
clear  across  the  world,  ring  them  until  their  golden 
tones  are  heard  in  Heaven,  and  so  may  you  cause  this 
and  all  thanksgivings  to  abound  unto  the  glory  of  God ! 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE 

Arise,  and  go  down  to  the  potter's  house,  and  there  I 
will  cause  thee  to  hear  My  words. — Jer.  xviii.  2. 

GOD'S  sermons  are  always  illustrated  close  up  to  life. 
Arguing  his  weakness,  man  stutters  in  abstractions, 
mumbles  in  metaphysics,  darkens  counsel  by  big  words. 
Revealing  His  wisdom,  God  speaks  through  objects 
familiar  to  all.  Man  would  analyze  the  beauty  of  the 
lily.  But  God  loves  the  lily  too  much  to  see  its  beauty 
tarnished.  Truly  this  is  God's  speech :  "Consider  the 
lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow."  Striking  his  brain 
against  the  clods,  man  says:  "How  do  they  grow?" 
Nothing  can  keep  a  worm  from  drilling  in  its  native 
soil;  placed  upon  a  snowy  marble  slab,  a  worm  would 
die  of  cleanliness.  But  while  man  is  burrowing  about 
the  how,  God  is  content  to  behold  the  growth  of  the 
lilies.  God  prefers  to  teach  in  objectives,  because  He 
knows  the  run  of  man's  brain  is  not  large  enough  to 
deal  in  subjectives  to  any  great  extent.  That  is  why 
He  sent  Jeremiah  to  school  in  the  potter's  house. 
There  is  a  well-defined  analogy  in  the  house  of  the 
potter  and  the  house  of  man's  soul.  God  seems  to  say 
to  the  prophet :  "Watch  the  potter  work,  and  you  will 
see  Me  work.  Look  at  the  potter's  clay,  for  that  is 
what  I  made  you  out  of.  Consider  the  potter's  wheels, 
for  as  he  puts  his  clay  upon  the  wheels,  so  do  I.  Ex- 
amine his  marred  vessels.  I  have  them  strewn  all  over 
the  earth.  Above  all,  be  sure  to  see  him  remake  his 
107 


108  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

marred  vessels,  for  that  is  what  I  delight  in  doing." 
And  Jeremiah  had  his  sermon.  It  is  one  of  the  best 
he  ever  had  because  it  came  from  the  lips  of  God.  It 
is  worth  our  while,  therefore,  to  consider  what  the 
prophet  saw  and  heard  in  the  house  of  the  potter. 

Pottery,  as  you  know,  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  of 
arts.  There  is  a  certain  charm  about  it  which  has 
endeared  it  to  all  civilized  nations.  Many  allusions  to 
it  are  found  in  classic  poetry.  Homer  compares  the 
rhythm  of  a  dance  to  the  measured  spin  of  the  potter's 
wheel.  With  the  exception  of  the  cave-dwellers  of  the 
Drift  period,  the  art  of  pottery  is  said  to  have  been 
practiced  by  all  known  prehistoric  races.  Nor  is  this 
at  all  strange  when  we  are  told  on  high  authority  that 
"no  process  in  any  handicraft  is  more  beautiful  than 
that  of  a  potter  molding  a  vessel  on  the  wheel."  Little 
wonder,  therefore,  that  Jeremiah  forgets  to  scold  on  his 
trip  to  the  potter's  house.  It  caused  him  to  remember 
that  God  is  not  a  destroyer  of  men's  lives,  but  that  He 
is  rather  a  Divine  Artist  touching  them  into  shapes  of 
imperishable  beauty.  No  mother's  cradle-song  was 
ever  sweeter  than  these  words:  "0  house  of  Israel, 
cannot  I  do  with  you  as  this  potter?  saith  the  Lord. 
Behold,  as  the  clay  in  the  potter's  hand,  so  are  ye  in 
mine  hand,  0  Eouse  of  Israel." 


I  think  the  first  thing  that  attracted  the  prophet's 
attention  was  the  partially  molded  clay.  It  was  not 
yet  ready  to  be  fashioned  into  some  lovely  shape.  The 
hand  of  the  potter  had  touched  it  but  slightly.  And 
that  is  why,  as  he  looked,  Jeremiah  discovered  that  it 
was  clay  of  an  ordinary  character.  Authorities  tell  us 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE  109 

that  the  potter  never  sees  his  clay  take  on  rich  shades 
of  silver,  or  red,  or  cream,  or  brown,  or  yellow,  until 
after  the  burning.  These  colors  come — after  the  burn- 
ing. The  clay  is  beautiful — after  the  burning.  The 
vase  is  made  possible — after  the  burning. 

Does  not  Jeremiah's  sermon  come  close  to  life? 
After  the  burning,  we  own  a  purity  that  sees  God. 
After  the  burning,  we  have  a  wisdom  that  knows  God. 
After  the  burning,  our  weakness  is  coined  into  strength 
and  we  lean  upon  God.  After  the  burning,  our  faith 
is  no  longer  a  flickering  flame,  but  an  eye  set  in  the 
soul  through  which  we  behold  the  Face  of  God.  If  the 
burning  hurts,  as  it  always  does,  it  is  only  a  prophecy 
of  the  strength  which  will  be  ushered  into  the  life. 
When  the  little  girl  told  her  music  teacher  that  it  hurt 
her  fingers  to  practice  on  the  piano,  the  teacher  an- 
swered: "I  know  it  hurts  them,  but  it  strengthens 
them,  too."  Then  the  child  packed  the  philosophy  of 
the  ages  into  her  reply :  "Teacher,  it  seems  that  every- 
thing which  strengthens,  hurts." 

How  wide-lying  and  universal  is  this  law  of  life! 
Where  did  the  bravest  men  and  purest  women  you 
know  get  their  whitened  characters?  Did  they  not  get 
them  as  the  clay  gets  its  beauty — after  the  burning? 
Where  did  your  mother  get  that  look  which,  as  you 
think,  would  add  dignity  to  an  angel's  face?  Already 
God  has  written  the  answer — after  the  burning.  Where 
did  Savonarola  get  his  eloquence,  and  Stradivari  his 
violins,  and  Titian  his  color,  and  Angelo  his  marbles, 
and  Mozart  his  music,  and  Chatterton  his  poetry,  and 
Palissy  his  enamel,  and  Jeremiah  his  sermon?  They 
got  them  where  the  clay  gets  its  glory  and  its  shimmer 
— after  the  burning! 

I  have  read  again  the  life-story  of  Katie  Powers, 


110  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

who  died  at  a  home  for  incurables  in  Cleveland.  When 
her  spirit  left  its  twisted,  misshapen  body,  strong  men 
told  their  strength  in  tears.  Katie  was  a  bright,  happy 
girl,  but  disease  did  ah1  in  its  power  to  rob  life  of  its 
winsomeness  for  her.  In  the  flush  of  young  woman- 
hood, inflammatory  rheumatism  left  her  unable  to 
walk.  But  when  God  made  this  girl  out  of  the  dust  of 
the  earth,  He  did  not  forget  to  slip  some  of  the  dust  of 
character-gold  into  her  soul.  Deprived  of  bodily  power, 
she  said:  "But  think  how  much  I  have  left!"  Then 
her  arms  stiffened,  her  fingers  drew  up  like  claws,  and 
her  jaw  became  so  rigid  that  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible for  her  to  eat  but  for  the  fact  that  her  teeth  were 
extracted  to  permit  the  introduction  of  food.  Her 
vision  forsook  her  also,  leaving  only  a  little  sight  in  one 
eye.  For  years  she  lay  huddled  up  in  an  invalid's 
chair.  She  could  see  a  little,  move  her  arms  a  little, 
and  that  was  all. 

And  what  did  she  do?  Why,  she  became  a  painter. 
She  would  lie  there  and  paint  sunny  bits  of  water 
color.  And  the  pictures  revealed  not  the  slightest  hint 
of  the  sufferer  in  the  background.  They  laughed  with 
sunshine  arid  blushed  with  hope.  People  never  thought 
of  pitying  her,  so  they  simply  loved  her.  She  carried 
not  only  her  own  burdens,  but  the  burdens  of  others 
also.  "Whenever  I  get  blue,"  said  a  neighbor,  "I  go  in 
and  see  Katie;  she  always  cheers  me  up."  "No  life 
ever  seemed  to  me  so  truly  Christian,"  said  one.  "It 
makes  you  believe  in  God,"  said  another.  And  when 
her  beautiful  spirit  went  up  to  receive  the  kiss  of  God, 
many  a  heart  in  the  Forest  City  was  draped  in  sorrow 
while  the  angels  wreathed  her  "in  a  smile  of  white." 
The  pathos  and  inspiration  of  it  all  is,  though  helpless 
herself,  this  pure,  white  martyr  maid  of  pain  helped 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE  111 

others — after  the  burning!    Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke  has 
set  our  truth  to  music : 

The  fire  of  love  was  burning,  yet  so  low 

That  in  the  dark  we  scarce  could  see  its  rays. 

And  in  the  light  of  perfect,  placid  days 
Nothing  but  smoldering  embers,  dull  and  slow. 
Vainly,  for  love's  delight,  we  sought  to  throw 

New  pleasures  on  the  pyre  to  make  it  blaze ; 

In  life's  calm  and  tranquil,  prosperous  ways 
We  missed  the  radiant  heat  of  long  ago. 
Then  in  the  night,  a  night  of  sad  alarms, 

Bitter  with  pain  and  black  with  fog  of  fears 
That  drove  us,  trembling,  to  each  other's  arms — 

Across  the  gulf  of  darkness  and  salt  tears, 
Into  life's  calm  the  wind  of  sorrow  came, 
And  fanned  the  fire  of  love  to  clearest  flame. 

II 

But  in  his  visit  Jeremiah  saw  more  than  the  un- 
molded  clay — he  saw  the  potter  working  at  his  art. 
"He  wrought  a  work  on  the  wheels."  The  prophet  saw 
the  unshapely  clay  taking  form.  As  the  potter  worked, 
he  observed  that  there  was  a  definite  plan  for  each 
vessel.  Some  were  large,  and  some  were  small;  some 
were  beautiful,  and  some  were  not;  some  bore  one 
color,  and  some  another.  But  he  noticed  that  in  this 
formative,  molding  process  there  was  an  intelligent 
purpose  in  the  mind  of  the  potter.  And  as  the  wheels 
went  spinning  round,  it  was  the  potter's  desire  to  get 
that  purpose  wrought  into  the  clay. 

So,  also,  God  wants  our  lives  to  be  an  expression  of 
His  thought.  After  all,  is  not  every  creature  a  thought 
of  God,  and  is  there  not  a  divine  plan  back  of  every 
life?  What  would  you  think  of  a  potter  who  would 
hold  his  vessel  to  the  wheels,  having  no  intelligent 


112  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

design  for  it?  Then  do  you  tell  me  that  the  infinite, 
all-loving  God  puts  human  clay  upon  the  whizzing 
wheels  of  life  with  no  governing  purpose,  no  definite 
plan?  Let  men  believe  such  a  thing  and  they  could 
say:  "Fatalism  has  hoisted  a  fool  to  the  throne  of  the 
universe."  With  such  a  creed,  men  might  well  think 
that  God  is  a  being  tossing  suns  and  planets  in  reckless 
desperation  over  the  fields  of  space,  gloating  over  the 
prospect  of  a  universal  calamity,  when  He  would  have 
the  supreme  satisfaction  of  attending  the  funeral  of  all 
worlds! 

But  we  rest  in  the  high  consolation  .that  Christ  un- 
veiled no  such  a  God.  If  there  is  design  for  the  lily, 
and  design  for  the  bird,  and  design  for  the  dew,  and 
design  for  the  star,  surely  there  must  be  design  for  you 
and  me.  If  the  sparrow  can  twitter,  "I  am  a  thought 
of  God";  if  the  flower  can  look  upward  as  if  to  say, 
"I  am  a  picture  of  God";  if  the  rolling  spheres  can 
strike  off  majestic  harmonies  as  they  sing,  "The  hand 
that  made  us  is  divine," — then  may  not  we,  with  in- 
finitely greater  reason,  look  up  through  Jesus  Christ 
toward  that  throne  "cushioned  in  splendor  behind  the 
stars,"  and  say  to  that  loving  Father  who  sits  upon  it : 
"We  are  the  clay,  and  Thou  our  potter;  and  we  all  are 
the  work  of  Thy  hand." 

And  yet,  Because  the  potter  has  design  for  the  clay 
as  he  holds  it  to  the  wheels,  does  not  argue  that  the 
clay  understands  that  design.  What  if  the  clay  could 
hear  as  the  potter  says:  "It  is  impossible  for  you  to 
know  what  a  beautiful  vase  I  will  make  of  you.  I 
know  you  think  this  burning  and  spinning  of  the 
wheels  are  all  nonsense.  But  just  be  patient  and  trust 
the  skill  of  my  hand,  and  when  you  are  finished,  men 
will  come  from  afar  and  carry  you  away  to  adorn  some 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE  113 

palace."  And  what  if  the  clay  should  answer:  "No, 
potter,  I  won't  trust  you,  because  I  can't  understand 
you.  I  know  you  can't  make  a  beautiful  vase  out  of 
such  material  as  I  am.  Let  me  alone,  potter,  I  am  sat- 
isfied." I  think  we  would  agree  that  such  clay  ought 
to  be  given  the  satisfaction  of  remaining  common,  ordi- 
nary mud !  But  the  potter  loves  his  clay  too  much  to 
be  thwarted  in  his  purpose.  That  fine  old  Flemish 
ware,  that  Persian  plate,  that  Rhodian  jug,  that  Roman 
cup,  that  Italian  majolica,  that  French  pottery  must 
gladden  the  world  with  its  beauty  and  its  service.  And 
so  the  fires  blister,  and  the  wheels  go  round,  and  after 
a  while  in  some  Louvre  or  British  Museum  a  glorious 
vase  looks  down  from  its  pedestal  as  if  to  say:  "See 
what  the  potter  has  done  for  me.  I  was  once  just 
common  clay  and  didn't  want  to  be  made  beautiful. 
But  the  potter  loved  me  too  much  to  heed  my  foolish 
protest  and  fashioned  my  ugliness  into  this  dream  of 
beauty!" 

And  that,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  parable  of  our  own 
lives.  Because  we  cannot  understand  the  touch  of 
the  Master's  hand;  because  we  fail,  in  our  blindness, 
to  glimpse  the  "far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory" ;  because  we  fail  to  read  the  intelligent  design 
back  of  our  lives,  we  of ttimes  grow  rebellious  and  say : 
"God  is  not  in  His  Heaven,  nor  is  all  right  with  the 
world."  Then  is  it  good  for  use  to  know  of  the  patient 
endurance,  the  mother  love,  the  holy  aspiration  of  this 
heroine  who  was  a  student  in  one  of  our  great  Indus- 
trial Schools.  A  woman  fifty  years  old  went  to  a 
teacher  and,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  begged  permission 
to  sit  down  with  the  little  ones  five  and  six  years  old, 
that  she  might  learn  to  read  and  write.  She  explained 
that  she  had  two  boys  in  the  West  and  desired  to  learn 


114  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

her  letters  so  that  she  could  communicate  with  them. 
Her  daughter  had  done  this  for  her,  but  three  years 
before  the  daughter  died,  and  now  the  hungry-hearted 
mother  was  willing  to  make  any  sacrifice  to  keep  in 
touch  with  her  sons.  So  she  entered  school  without 
telling  any  one,  even  her  husband.  Four  weeks  from 
the  day  she  entered,  she  was  able  to  read  through  the 
primer,  first  reader,  and  almost  through  the  second. 
She  soon  learned  to  write  so  any  one  could  easily  read 
every  word.  She  learned  ten  new  words  at  home  every 
day,  and  always  knew  her  lesson  perfectly.  Having 
learned  to  begin  and  end  a  letter,  it  was  not  long  before 
she  could  write  a  love  letter — a  genuine  mother-love- 
letter—to  her  boys.  Through  the  goodness  of  my 
friend,  I  have  in  my  possession  a  yellow  sheet  of  paper 
containing  one  of  her  writing  exercises.  Reading  be- 
tween the  lines,  there  is  something  inexpressibly  touch- 
ing about  it.  The  words  are  such  as  may  be  found  in 
the  copy-book  of  any  school  boy ;  but  the  mother,  with 
her  hard  hands  and  tender  heart,  as  she  copied  the 
words  imagined  herself  writing  a  letter  to  one  of  her 
sons.  After  writing  her  address  and  the  date,  this 
imaginary  epistle,  brimming  with  a  real  love,  reads: 
"My  dear  son  Hugh : 

"Be  the  matter  what  it  may, 
Always  speak  the  truth. 
If  at  work  or  if  at  play, 
Always  speak  the  truth." 

Surely,  there  is  no  ordinary  clay  in  this  vessel !  She 
may  not  be  able  to  understand  the  plan  of  her  soul's 
Divine  Potter,  but  a  brave  trust  and  a  high  hope  reside 
at  the  center  of  her  being.  By  the  light  of  her  soul  she 
follows  on  to  overtake  that  glory,  the  very  character 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE  115 

of  God  inwrought  in  a  human  life,  which  awaits  the 
faithful  unto  death,  who  are  always  and  evermore  the 
faithful  in  life. 

in 

Consider,  finally,  what  the  prophet  heard  in  the 
house  of  the  potter.  "Arise,  and  go  down  to  the  pot- 
ter's house,  and  there  I  will  cause  thee  to  hear  My 
words."  It  is  as  if  the  Divine  Potter  had  said :  "There, 
amid  the  burning  clay  and  whirring  wheels;  there, 
where  the  shapeless  clay  takes  form ;  there,  where  the 
form  grows  into  a  thing  of  beauty,  I  will  cause  thee  to 
hear  My  words."  Here  is  the  mystery  and  glory  of  it 
all,  my  friends.  The  clay  hears  the  call  of  the  potter 
to  become  a  vase,  and  at  once  begins  to  rise  out  of 
unshapeliness  into  beauty.  And  the  soul  hears  the 
voice  of  its  Potter,  too,  and  thence  begins  the  upward 
climb.  The  ascent  is  long  and  slow,  the  pathway  is 
ofttimes  studded  with  thorns,  but  away  up  beyond  the 
mists  and  shadows  the  summit  peaks  are  bathed  in 
splendor.  From  that  far  height  the  Potter's  voice  sends 
down  the  call:  "0  Soul,  meet  Me  here,  meet  Me  here!" 
And  the  soul,  with  its  vision  of  white  thrilling  it 
through  and  through,  pushes  onward  and  upward 
toward  that  tearless  city  of  the  cloudless  land ! 

When  Palissy  saw  a  certain  beautiful  cup,  it  is  said 
that  the  sight  of  it  disturbed  his  whole  existence.  For- 
getting everything  else,  the  one  passion  of  the  great 
potter's  life  was  to  discover  the  secret  of  making  white 
enamel  with  which  the  cup  was  glazed.  But  oh,  what 
failures,  what  sufferings,  what  hardships  were  his! 
Once  he  tended  his  furnace  for  six  long  days  and  nights, 
without  a  moment's  sleep,  his  soul  singing:  "I  must 
win  the  white,  the  glorious  white!"  When  poverty 


116  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

came  and  his  friends  forsook  him  as  a  visionary,  the 
great  heart  never  for  a  moment  lost  his  vision  of  the 
white.  When  at  last  his  furniture  fed  the  flames,  and 
his  family  rushed  forth  into  the  streets  crying  that  he 
had  lost  his  reason,  still  Palissy  pursued  his  unconquer- 
able quest  of  the  white.  And  after  sixteen  years  of  un- 
tiring search,  loneliness,  and  sorrow,  the  immortal 
potter  found  the  secret  of  the  white  which  he  had  seen 
upon  the  little  Italian  cup  in  the  long  past.  But  better 
still,  at  the  end  of  life's  journey  the  whiteness  of  the 
potter's  soul  lit  up  his  prison  walls.  When  Henry  III 
visited  him  in  his  cell,  hoping  to  persuade  Palissy  to 
renounce  Protestantism,  the  monarch  said :  "I  am  con- 
strained to  leave  you  in  the  hands  of  your  enemies,  and 
to-morrow  you  will  be  burned  unless  you  become  con- 
verted." "Sire,"  answered  Palissy,  "I  am  ready  to  give 
my  life  for  the  glory  of  God.  You  have  said  many 
times  that  you  have  pity  on  me;  and  now  I  have  pity 
on  you,  who  have  pronounced  the  words  I  am  con- 
strained !  It  is  not  spoken  like  a  king ;  it  is  what  you, 
and  those  who  constrain  you,  the  Guisards  and  all  your 
people,  can  never  effect  upon  me,  for  I  know  how  to 
die."  Having  spent  years  and  years  looking  .for  the 
white,  Palissy  found  it  at  last  in  a  City  whose  maker 
and  builder  is  God. 

I  know  that  to  some  of  us  life  seems  one  prolonged 
journey  to  the  potter's  house,  where  we  touch  the  spin- 
ning wheels  of  mystery  and  feel  the  blistering  fires  of 
pain.  But  never  mind,  my  friends,  the  universe  itself 
is  laboring  to  build  a  City  worthy  to  be  your  home. 
According  to  St.  John,  that  city  is  fair  beyond  a  lover's 
dream  of  love,  and  pure  beyond  the  dimpled  smile 
stealing  over  a  babe's  face  in  sleep.  In  his  vision,  the 
City  seemed  to  be  as  airy  as  a  sunbeam  and  as  solid  as 


THE  POTTER'S  HOUSE  117 

a  marble  mountain.  For  though  he  beheld  it  coming 
down  out  of  heaven  from  God,  the  wall  of  the  City 
had  twelve  foundations,  and  on  them  twelve  names  of 
the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb.  It  seemed  as  if  God 
had  swept  the  worlds  for  jewels  with  which  to  adorn 
the  foundations  of  that  wall.  The  first  foundation  was 
jasper,  and  the  second  sapphire,  and  the  third  chal- 
cedony, and  the  fourth  emerald,  and  the  fifth  sardonyx, 
and  the  sixth  sardius,  and  the  seventh  chrysolite,  and 
the  eighth  beryl,  and  the  ninth  topaz,  and  the  tenth 
chrysoprase,  and  the  eleventh  jacinth,  and  the  twelfth 
amethyst. 

But  grander  than  the  architecture,  and  next  to  the 
Lamb  himself,  I  think  the  most  majestic  scene  in  John's 
vision  of  the  City  is  the  countless  throng  of  the  kings 
and  queens  of  pain.  Grander  than  the  four  angels 
holding  the  four  winds  of  the  earth ;  more  commanding 
than  that  mighty  angel  ascending  out  of  the  sunrise, 
having  in  his  hand  the  seal  of  the  living  God;  more 
magnificent  than  splendored  foundations  and  jasper 
walls  and  gates  of  pearl  and  streets  of  gold,  is  that  great 
multitude  which  no  man  could  number,  standing  before 
the  throne  and  before  the  Lamb,  saying:  "Salvation 
unto  our  God  which  sitteth  on  the  throne,  and  unto  the 
Lamb!"  When  one  of  the  elders  asked,  "These  which 
are  arrayed  in  the  white  robes,  who  are  they,  and 
whence  came  they?"  John  answered:  "My  lord,  thou 
knowest."  And  the  elder  himself  made  reply:  "These 
are  they  which  came  out  of  great  tribulation,  and  have 
washed  their  robes,  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb."  The  prevailing  color  in  the  City  of  God 
is  pure  white,  and  the  whitest  whiteness  is  wrought  in 
Calvary's  crimson  stream.  0,  let  us  win  the  white! 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  * 

As  He  passed  through  it,  there  was  a  man  called  Zac- 
chcsus,  the  head  of  the  tax-gatherers,  a  wealthy  man, 
who  tried  to  see  what  Jesus  was  like.— St.  Luke  xix.  2,  3 
(Moffatt's  Translation) . 

IN  approaching  our  text,  three  facts  require  consid- 
eration. The  first  is  the  city  of  Jericho  itself.  Nestling 
in  the  heart  of  opulent  groves  of  palm  and  balsam  trees, 
Jericho  was  prosperous,  priestly,  and  proud.  Both  re- 
ligion and  commerce  contributed  to  the  famous  city's 
prosperity.  Of  the  twenty-four  courses  of  the  Jewish 
priesthood  officiating  by  turns  in  the  Temple,  probably 
one-half  made  the  City  of  Palm  Trees  their  home. 
Their  opposition  to  Christ  was  bitter  and  intense.  Per- 
haps He  is  passing  through  it  because  their  enmity 
made  it  impossible  for  Him  to  remain  in  the  place  over 
night.  The  commercial  importance  of  Jericho  is  evi- 
denced by  the  large  staff  of  tax-gatherers  who  resided 
there  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  the  revenue  accruing 
from  the  balsam  trade. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  fact — the  man  Zacchaeus, 
chief  of  the  revenue-collectors.  As  a  Jewish  officer  of 
the  Roman  government,  not  unnaturally  he  was  hated 
and  despised  by  his  own  people.  And  now,  as  the 
multitudes  throng  about  Jesus,  the  little  tax-gatherer 
is  buzzing  in  and  out  in  his  efforts  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  Him.  As  he  hurries  first  to  one  point  and  then 

'Preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  Sunday  morning, 
November  20,  1921. 

118 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  119 

another,  he  is  physically  jostled  and  pushed  even  while 
he  is  at  the  same  time  verbally  lashed  with  epithets  of 
hatred  and  contempt.  But  he  was  determined  to  see 
Jesus!  And  that  is  the  one  determination  absolutely 
certain  of  fulfillment  to  the  human  soul.  Other  deter- 
minations may  and  do  fail,  but  this  one — the  noblest 
of  all — is  sure  of  realization.  So,  as  the  Master  was 
unable  to  find  a  lodging  place  in  the  city  and  was 
already  passing  through  it,  Zacehaeus  bethought  him  of 
a  sycamore  tree  he  knew  out  beyond  the  city  walls. 
That  tree,  he  concluded,  would  at  last  make  him  tall 
enough  to  see  Jesus.  Running  around  the  crowd  that 
ruthlessly  thwarted  him,  he  climbed  to  his  place  of 
vantage  and  waited. 

This,  as  you  see,  brings  us  to  the  third  fact  in  our 
text.  It  is  the  Master  Himself!  Inasmuch  as  He  is 
the  sole  apology  for  this  or  any  other  sermon,  our 
third  and  transcendent  fact  will  disclose  itself  as  we 
proceed  with  our  discussion.  For  the  text,  in  describing 
Zacchseus'  desire  "to  see  what  Jesus  was  like,"  declares 
"The  Vision  Splendid"  for  all  souls  who  will  have  it. 


Jesus  is  like  a  blessed  surprise.  Goaded  by  curiosity, 
Zacchseus  wanted  to  see  the  outer,  external  Jesus — 
the  teacher,  the  reformer,  the  miracle-worker— and  lo ! 
he  sees  an  astonishing  Jesus.  For  the  Master  surprised 
both  Zacchseus  and  the  multitude.  Little  did  the  tax- 
gatherer  imagine  that,  while  he  was  being  hustled  to 
and  fro  by  the  hostile  crowd,  there  was  One  Who 
thoughtfully  grasped  his  unhappy  predicament  and  re- 
solved to  single  him  out  for  peculiar  honors  that  very 
day.  Before  Zacchseus  climbed  his  tree,  and  while 


120  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

words  of  derision  and  contempt  were  being  poured  upon 
him  by  his  fellow  countrymen,  the  Master  saw  him. 

And  is  it  not  always  so?  Even  before  a  man  ever 
tries  to  see  the  Christ,  already  the  Savior  is  watching 
him,  eager  to  seize  the  earliest  moment  when  the  man 
will  hear  and  understand  His  appeal.  "But  when 
Jesus  reached  the  spot  He  looked  up  and  said  to  him, 
Zacchaeus,  come  down  at  once,  for  I  must  stay  at  your 
house  to-day."  Likewise  the  people,  also,  were  sur- 
prised at  Jesus.  "But  when  they  saw  this,  everyone 
began  to  mutter  that  He  had  gone  to  be  the  guest  of  a 
sinner."  In  other  words,  much  of  our  religion  is  only 
skin-deep.  We  reckon  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is 
reducible  to  the  dimensions  of  a  theological  capsule, 
daintily  compounded  by  pharisaic  apothecaries.  Such 
a  God,  we  aver,  is  for  the  elect  only — those  neatly- 
fitting,  kid-gloved  souls  who  fit  into  almost  any  place 
other  than  the  heavens  of  reality.  But  we  are  mis- 
taken! The  God  of  Christ  is  after  "the  sinner" — big 
and  little,  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  no  matter 
what  his  color,  creed,  or  condition.  So  Jesus  pro- 
foundly surprised  the  despisers  of  Zacchseus  that  day 
in  the  long  ago;  He  has  been  doing  it  ever  since;  He 
will  continue  to  do  it  until  human  beings  realize  that 
the  Christian  religion  is  not  an  afternoon-tea-affair,  but 
so  awful  and  glorious  that  the  universe  must  remain 
incomplete  as  long  as  one  soul  is  unreconciled  to  the 
God  of  Love. 

Would  you,  too,  see  what  the  ageless  surprise  of 
Jesus  is  like?  Well,  you  may!  For  the  living,  eternal 
Jesus  continues  to  come  as  a  blessed  surprise  to  the 
souls  of  men.  Think  of  that  first  century  group — 
Peter,  James,  John,  and  Paul.  One  of  the  most  arrest- 
ing things  in  their  companionship  with  the  Master  is 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  121 

this:  Little  by  little  He  unfolded  Himself  to  them 
as  the  Great  Unfathomable.  Peter  thought  He  under- 
stood Jesus  better  than  Jesus  understood  Himself; 
and  so  the  apostle  even  dared  to  modify  the  Master's 
purpose.  The  scene  is  all  the  more  memorable  be- 
cause it  followed  the  great  confession  of  Peter  at 
Csesarea  Philippi.  While  the  air  was  still  melodious 
with  that  great  outburst  of  personal  faith,  Jesus  began 
to  show  the  Twelve  that  He  was  going  to  Jerusalem 
and  there  would  be  done  to  death  by  the  elders  and 
high  priests  and  scribes.  But  Peter  at  once  voiced  his 
disapproval  as  awhile  ago  he  expressed  his  immortal 
commendation.  "God  forbid,  Lord,"  he  said.  "This 
must  not  be."  That  very  instant  Peter  got  another  look 
into  the  unsounded  depths  of  Christ!  "But  He  turned 
and  said  to  Peter,  Get  behind  Me,  you  Satan!  You 
are  a  hindrance  to  Me!  Your  outlook  is  not  God's 
but  man's."  I  think  Peter  never  forgot  that  moment  ; 
yea,  is  it  not  still  vivid  to  him  as  he  ranges  the  great 
ways  of  Eternity?  It  was  like  opening  a  golden  door 
in  the  Temple  of  the  Infinite.  A  sudden,  undreamed 
splendor  flamed  out  of  the  Soul  of  Jesus  upon  the 
trembling  disciple.  Peter  was  dazzled  as  he  leaned 
over  the  edge  of  being  and  beheld  a  new  apocalypse  of 
what  Jesus  was  like. 

But  the  surprise  of  Jesus  is  not  confined  to  the  apos- 
tolic era.  In  every  age  He  breaks  upon  the  souls  of 
men  with  new  and  compelling  wonder.  And  why? 
Because,  in  Christ,  men  are  able  to  make  deeper  ex- 
plorations into  the  true  nature  of  God.  For  humanity 
is  evermore  attempting  to  discover  what  God  is  like. 
Here  is  the  one  subject  to  which  men  are  always  re- 
turning; it  will  not  let  them  go;  nor  can  they  let  it 
go.  Who  is  this  Being  Who  is  continuously  passing 


122  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

through  the  Jerichos  of  history,  in  Whose  wake  the 
millions  eagerly  follow,  century  in  and  century  out, 
endeavoring  to  understand  Him?  There  are  many 
evidences  of  God  in  the  universe;  there  are  innumer- 
able tokens  of  the  Presence  of  God  in  human  life  in 
all  ages  and  peoples.  Yet  is  it  not  an  absolute  fact 
that  the  souls  having  the  most  satisfying  vision  of 
God  are  those  who  came  upon  their  vision  through 
Christ?  The  surprise  of  Jesus  is  in  His  disclosure  of 
God.  As  there  is  one  supreme  law  of  gravity  holding 
atoms  and  stars  together,  so  there  is  one  supreme 
Mediator  between  God  and  Man — the  Man  Christ 
Jesus.  Therefore,  in  seeing  what  Jesus  is  like,  men 
are  made  gloriously  aware  of  what  God  is  like. 

Once  more  let  me  ask:  Would  you  see  what  the 
miraculous  surprise  of  Jesus  is  like?  Then  be  a  modern 
Zacchseus;  be  a  spiritual  pioneer;  do  something  in 
the  name  of  your  own  soul.  Climb  the  Tree  of  Trust. 
Run  around  the  crowd  that  jostles  and  condemns. 
Forsake  the  priest,  the  scribe,  the  Pharisee;  get  clear 
out  beyond  the  city  walls;  make  for  your  own  syca- 
more of  faith;  and  there,  amid  the  green,  fragrant 
realities  of  being,  God  shall  find  you  and  go  home 
with  you.  Forget  your  theories,  your  metaphysics, 
your  philosophy,  even  your  theology;  at  least,  forget 
them  long  enough  to  give  our  soul  a  chance.  Once  you 
are  in  the  presence  of  Jesus,  you  will  be  enabled  to 
use  your  speculations  without  being  hopelessly  used 
by  them.  If  they  are  true,  Christ  will  transfigure  and 
enlarge  them;  if  they  are  false.  He  will  release  their 
deadening  grip  upon  you.  This  is  that  experience  of 
"life  eternal"  which  Jesus  imports  into  human  nature 
out  of  the  Divine  Consciousness.  Call  it  mysticism, 
call  it  anything  you  choose ;  but  after  calling  it  all  the 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  123 

names  you  can  think  of,  remember  that  words  cannot 
exhaust  the  reality.  "We  don't  know,"  says  a  modern 
prophet,  "how  the  death  of  Christ  finds  compensations 
for  the  past  of  us.  There  are  times  when  we  have 
glimpses  of  the  method,  and  instantly  we  find  ourselves 
on  the  frontiers  of  the  unknowable.  We  need  not  be 
overwise.  We  know  that  our  yesterdays  are  not  dead, 
that  there  is  no  funeral  we  can  give  them.  Our  per- 
plexities are  from  the  back  years,  the  wastes,  the  neg- 
lects, the  slights,  from  riot  and  pride,  from  the  ashes 
of  burnt-out  fires;  also  from  propagations  and  trans- 
missions. But  the  life  and  death  of  Christ  are  trans- 
lated into  us  as  the  confidences  of  redemption,  and  as 
a  hope  that  the  wastefulness  of  life  is  redeemed.  Then 
it  is  our  jubilee,  a  jubilation  of  the  soul.  Then  for- 
feited estates  revert  to  their  owners,  the  fee-simple  of 
which  is  not  allowed  to  be  sold.  This  confidence  is 
inspired  by  our  fellowship  with  Christ,  by  the  loving 
gaze  of  the  soul  upon  Him." 

It  is  all  so  refreshingly  big  with  the  wonder  of  the 
childlike.  In  company  with  some  friends,  I  took  a 
doll  to  a  little  girl  whose  mother  is  "dead,"  as  we  say; 
though  this  little  five-year-old  insists  that  her  mother 
is  not  dead,  but  in  Heaven.  Ah,  I  wonder  if  out  of  the 
mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings  God  not  only  ordains 
strength,  but  speaks  a  wisdom  which  the  wise  cannot 
know!  Well,  this  doll  is  so  made  that  when  you  turn 
it  upside  down,  it  utters  a  tiny,  humanlike  cry.  "Now 
that,"  exclaimed  the  little  girl,  as  the  doll  gave  a  cry, 
"is  just  what  I  wanted!"  And  there  is  something  of 
the  childlike  in  the  human  soul  which  responds  to  the 
surprise  of  Jesus  with  wonder  and  tears.  In  their 
eager  quest  after  God,  men  follow  many  paths.  Still 
unsatisfied  and  prompted  by  the  childlike  nestling 


124  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

within  them,  at  last  they  climb  their  lovely  tree  of 
simple  trust — far  out  beyond  the  conventional,  beyond 
the  lifeless  forms  of  religion,  beyond  the  city's  pride 
and  prejudice;  and  there,  embowered  within  their 
fragrant  branches  of  eagerness  and  hope,  the  Eternal 
Love  finds  them,  as  they  adoringly  cry:  "Why,  this  is 
just  what  I  wanted — the  strong  tones  of  Deity  through 
a  tender  human  voice!" 

ii 

Moreover,  Jesus  is  like  an  untold  gladness  in  the 
heart.  Zacchseus  "came  down  at  once  and  welcomed 
Him  gladly."  There  is  something  very  touching  about 
the  new-found  gladness  of  the  tax-collector.  Though 
successful  and  wealthy,  life  had  proven  a  disappoint- 
ment to  Zacchaeus;  and  now  a  little  wind  of  gladness 
begins  to  stir  in  the  branches  of  his  soul!  When  the 
people  protested  against  the  unseemly  relations  so 
quickly  established  between  the  Master  and  the  social 
outcast,  Zacchseus  stopped  and  said  to  the  Lord:  "I 
will  give  the  half  of  all  I  have,  Lord,  to  the  poor,  and 
if  I  have  cheated  anybody  I  will  give  him  back  four 
times  as  much."  Why,  the  joy  of  Jesus  had  run  clean 
down  to  the  roots  of  his  soul;  and  already  that  joy  is 
beginning  to  disclose  itself  in  high  resolves  and  honest 
deeds. 

Well,  Jesus  is  still  like  an  untold  gladness  to  men 
and  women  who  have  found  life  hard  and  disillusion- 
ing. We  are  trying  to  find  a  moral  equivalent  for  war. 
It  is  one  of  the  imperative  necessities  for  mankind. 
And  we  shall  surely  find  it,  if  we  look  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. That  direction  is  Christ,  and  Christ  alone.  We 
are  working  for  a  better  industrial  order.  But  we  are 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  126 

not  going  to  find  a  solution  by  merely  shifting  the 
emphasis  from  one  phase  of  the  economic  aspect  to 
another.  We  must  reckon  with  the  mysterious  stuff 
of  human  nature;  we  must  correct  the  delusion  that 
poverty  and  wealth  are  all,  or  the  major,  matters.  We 
must  find  a  soul-equivalent  for  human  life  in  all  its 
terror  and  glory.  For  life  is  hard,  at  best.  Full  of 
mystery  and  agony  and  disappointment,  only  shallow 
people  picture  life  as  rosy  or  auroral.  Either  they 
have  not  worthily  lived  and  thought,  or  else  there  is 
lack  of  capacity  for  measuring  the  vast  problems  of. 
existence.  But  we  must  add  to  the  sheer  hardness  of 
being  this  other  dark  item:  The  ruin  which  man's 
own  deliberate  wrong-doing  wreaks  upon  humanity. 
Then  indeed  is  the  original  difficulty  of  life  indefinitely 
augmented.  Nursing  a  blind  fury  in  the  brain,  then 
do  men  cry  aloud  against  the  cruelty  of  nature,  the 
inhumanity  of  man,  the  impossibility  of  discovering 
God. 

Now,  we  must  not  only  have  the  moral  equivalent 
for  a  sullen  mood  like  this;  we  must  have  the  power 
of  an  endless  life  penetrating  to  the  inmost  core  of  such 
a  mood  and  regenerating  the  hidden  motives  of  being. 
We  have  such  a  Power!  The  Person  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  reaches  down  into  the  dry  soil  of  humanity  and 
waters  it  so  thoroughly  that  the  dryness  gives  place  to 
a  heavenly  vitality.  Thus,  even  as  the  wrongs  of  men 
are  our  despair,  so  the  joy  of  the  Lord  becomes  our 
strength.  When  things  are  so  bad  that  hell  is  not  a 
theory  but  a  fact,  let  us  stand  still  and  see  the  salvation 
of  God.  And  if  you  think  it  is  an  easy  task  to  stand 
still — to  wait  and  watch  even  while  you  work  and 
pray — it  is  accusing  evidence  that  you  have  never  even 
glimpsed  the  moral  centers  of  the  universe,  much  less 


126  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

taken  your  stand  upon  those  glowing  centers  as  the 
ultimate  meaning  of  life. 

Would  you  know,  then,  what  the  untold  gladness  of 
Jesus  is  like?  Climb  the  Tree  of  Obedience.  Listen  to 
the  whisper  of  God  in  your  own  soul.  Seek  the  thing 
that  is  fair  and  just  and  beautiful.  There,  in  the 
branches  of  your  tree — outside  the  city  of  theory  or 
science  or  even  religion  itself,  if  it  be  nothing  more 
than  a  kind  of  palsied  Jericho-priestcraft  mumbling 
about  in  our  twentieth-century  world — there,  there  in 
the  stillness  and  the  bloom  and  the  wonder,  God  shall 
set  spiritual  larks  warbling  in  your  soul — larks  of  that 
heavenly  dawn  which  foretell  the  perfect  day. 

The  joy  of  Jesus  in  the  human  heart  is  one  of  the 
creative  facts  of  these  two  thousand  years.  Again 
and  again  men  have  seen  everything  go  from  this 
earth  but  the  joy  of  Jesus.  Civilizations  have  van- 
ished; kingdoms  have  waxed  and  waned;  empires  have 
been  entombed;  learning  and  might  and  power  and 
genius  have  stood  aghast  at  the  riddle  of  existence. 
Yet  the  imprint  of  Christ's  joy  in  the  soul  of  man 
cannot  be  destroyed.  Malign  forces  have  always  been 
able  to  kill  the  bodies  of  men;  but  no  power  in  earth 
or  hell  has  been  able  to  kill  the  joy  of  Jesus  in  souls 
who  trust  him.  Like  those  antique  harmonies  orig- 
inally played  into  the  spheres  when  the  morning  stars 
sang  together,  the  Master's  untold  gladness  is  woven 
into  the  fiber  and  fabric  of  Christianized  personality. 
This  fact  is  somewhat  elucidated  in  the  history  of  art. 
For  generations  critics  have  debated  whether  "The 
Virgin  of  the  Rocks"  in  the  National  Gallery  was  a 
genuine  Leonardo.  This  picture  is  practically  a  dupli- 
cate of  an  authentic  Leonardo  in  the  Louvre.  The 
English  gallery  had  paid  $45,000  for  its  painting;  so 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  127 

there  was  a  monetary  as  well  as  an  artistic  value 
attached  to  the  dispute.  The  argument  for  and  against 
the  English  painting's  genuineness  has  gone  on  among 
the  connoisseurs  so  long  that  there  seemed  to  be  no 
final  judgment  available. 

Now,  however,  authorities  maintain  that  the  ques- 
tion has  been  settled  by  the  aid  of  the  finger  print 
system.  Sir  Charles  Holmes  "knew  that  much  of  the 
exquisite  modeling  of  the  oil  painting  had  been  done 
by  softening  the  still  wet  paint  with  finger  and  thumb 
lips."  So  the  eminent  art  critic  went  about  his  task 
in  a  scientific  manner.  First  of  all,  he  chose  six  of 
Da  Vinci's  paintings  about  which  there  is  no  question 
whatever.  Scotland  Yard's  experts  then  examined  the 
finger  prints  of  the  six ;  then  they  went  to  the  Louvre, 
where  they  studied  the  unquestioned  Leonardo;  last 
of  all,  they  came  back  to  the  English  gallery,  took  the 
finger  prints  of  the  much-disputed  "Virgin  of  the 
Rocks,"  and  pronounced  it  genuine. 

Dead  for  four  centuries,  even  Leonardo's  touch  upon 
canvas  cannot  be  obliterated.  But  alive  forevermore, 
our  Lord  and  Master  keeps  the  joy-bells  chiming  in 
His  renovated  temples  of  human  nature.  No  century 
and  no  civilization  has  been  utterly  deaf  to  their  im- 
mortal melodies;  and  I  doubt  not  that  their  volume 
will  increase  with  the  ages,  until  at  last  their  golden 
tollings  shall  ring  throughout  the  whole  of  creation's 
immeasurable  bounds.  With  such  tenderness  as  a 
dying  mother  soothes  her  weeping  children,  Jesus 
gathered  His  frightened,  sorrowing  disciple-band  with- 
in the  vast  heavens  of  His  heart  and  consoled  them 
with  these  words:  "And  ye  therefore  now  have  sor- 
row: but  I  will  see  you  again,  and  your  heart  shall 
rejoice,  and  your  joy  no  one  taketh  away  from  you." 


128  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

Has  He  not  been  seeing  His  lovers  again  and  again,  in 
joy  and  sorrow,  in  sickness  and  health,  in  poverty  and 
abundance,  in  youth  and  age,  in  prison  and  palace, 
these  sixty  generations  through?  Would  you  see  what 
Jesus  is  like,  what  the  vision  splendid  really  is?  Climb 
the  Tree  of  Obedience.  In  due  season  you  will  be  lifted 
so  close  to  the  City  of  God  that  the  Tree  of  Life  shall 
mysteriously  drop  its  luscious  fruit  into  the  lap  of  thy 
soul! 

in 

Appraising  this  very  human  scene  outside  the  walls 
of  Jericho,  we  find,  furthermore,  that  Jesus  is  like  gen- 
erosity itself.  Weigh  the  protest  of  the  crowd  toward 
Jesus'  treatment  of  Zacchaus;  consider  that  the  muddy 
waters  of  hatred  and  contempt  were  boiling  up  from 
racial  and  religious  depths — fierce,  seething,  oriental 
depths  at  that;  and  then  consider  that  the  spirit  of 
restitution  on  the  part  of  Zacchseus  was  just  the  tax- 
gatherer's  own  reaction  to  the  Master's  magnanimity. 
Consider  this,  I  say,  and  you  will  be  face  to  face  with 
one  of  the  undying  splendors  of  the  Christian's  Christ. 

For  what  is  the  fact?  Just  this:  Unnumbered  mil- 
lions of  human  beings  have  beautifully  forsaken  their 
native  human  stinginess  in  the  Presence  of  Jesus.  To 
make  a  mean  man  high-minded ;  to  make  a  selfish  man 
unselfish ;  to  make  a  vulgar  man  dignified ;  to  make  a 
parsimonious  man  generous ;  to  make  a  false  man  true ; 
to  make  a  lazy  man  industrious ;  to  make  a  lustful  man 
pure;  to  make  an  avaricious  man  open-handed;  to 
make  a  jealous  man  unenvious;  to  make  an  atheist  a 
believer — to  do  this  is  surely  the  task  of  a  God;  and 
only  the  Very  and  Eternal  God,  after  infinite  wooing 
and  manifold  approaches,  can  perform  such  an  ardu- 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  129 

ous  task.  For,  mark  you,  once  the  soul  has  received 
a  definite  bent,  has  taken  a  certain  stride  down  the 
road  of  destiny,  to  change  that  bent  and  transform 
that  stride,  something  more  than  high  resolves  and 
sugar-coated  moral  condiments  are  necessary.  Indeed 
no  work  in  the  universe  is  at  all  comparable  to  this. 
Vast  modifications  of  matter,  in  comparison,  are  mole- 
hill tasks.  Scientific  discoveries,  involving  all  the 
patience  and  skill  of  the  finely  trained  intellect,  are  as 
child's  play  set  over  against  this  essential  transforma- 
tion of  the  soul.  Take,  for  example,  the  matter  of 
avarice  and  its  corroding  power  in  human  nature.  A 
friend  of  mine  sought  the  aid  of  a  very  wealthy  man 
in  what  he  has  termed  "an  exceedingly  noble  cause." 
The  rich  man  answered  the  plea  as  if  he  were  on  the 
verge  of  poverty  itself.  "I  really  cannot  give  any 
more!"  he  said.  "What  with  one  thing  and  another,  I 
do  not  know  what  we  are  coming  to!"  A  short  time 
afterward  the  man  died,  leaving  an  estate  valued  at 
more  than  sixty  millions  of  dollars!  Yet  the  man  was 
not  insincere  when  he  expressed  the  feeling  that  he 
could  not  give  another  dollar  to  a  noble  cause ;  he  was 
just  the  victim  of  the  atrophying  power  of  avarice  in 
the  human  soul.  Dr.  Jowett's  experience  recalls  the 
story  that  an  eminent  English  physician  related  to 
Dean  Farrar.  The  physician  said  that  at  night  his 
patient,  unable  to  sleep,  persisted  in  nervously  rubbing 
his  hands  and  twitching  his  fingers.  The  doctor  won- 
dered what  it  all  meant.  Then  the  patient's  son  ex- 
plained the  strange  habit.  "My  father,"  he  said,  "is 
in  the  habit  of  fondling  a  fifty  pound  note  as  he  goes  to 
sleep."  So  a  note  was  placed  in  the  sick  man's  hand; 
he  went  to  sleep ;  and  he  never  woke  up  again — in  this 
world! 


130  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

How  to  arrest  the  stain  of  avarice;  how  to  uproot 
the  fungus  of  selfishness;  how  to  destroy  the  briers  of 
lust;  how  to  kill  out  the  weeds  of  jealousy;  how  to 
eradicate  the  stubble  from  which  only  the  stalks  of 
sin  have  been  cut;  how,  in  a  word,  to  change  a  poor, 
stingy  mortal  into  one  of  God's  generous  immortals, 
homing  here  and  now  in  the  flesh — this  is  a  work  call- 
ing for  the  patience  and  wisdom  and  love  of  God.  Be- 
lieve me,  my  friends,  Somebody  has  to  wrestle  with 
Zacchseus  not  only  as  he  is  to-day;  but  with  the 
Zacchseus  of  to-day,  plus  all  his  crooked  yesterdays, 
that  he  may  not  carry  through  Eternity  his  yester- 
days, his  to-days,  and  his  to-morrows  multiplied  by 
failure,  tragedy,  and  wrongdoing,  even  though  his  life 
in  this  world  be  crowned  with  brilliant  success. 

Is  there  a  Somebody  equal  to  this  tremendous 
undertaking?  Yes!  A  thousand  tunes — yes!  Would 
you  see  what  that  Somebody  is  like — Somebody  Who 
inhabits  Eternity  even  as  He  whispers  to  a  defeated 
soul:  "All  which  the  Father  giveth  Me  shall  come 
unto  Me ;  and  him  that  cometh  to  Me  I  will  in  no  wise 
cast  out."  Then  climb  your  own  Tree  of  Restitution! 
Betake  yourself  into  His  presence,  and  you  yourself 
shall  see  what  the  generosity  of  Jesus  is  like.  Why, 
is  it  not  like  that  astronomic  old  billionaire  named  the 
sun?  I  have  seen  him  billowing  the  west  with  wave$ 
of  molten  splendor;  and  even  his  afterglow  sets  the 
eastern  skies  afire  with  flaming  islands  and  burning 
mountains  of  color.  Then  I  laid  me  down  and  slept 
and  lo!  the  glory  and  freshness  of  a  new  morning  was 
here.  Our  little  planet  had  swung  around  the  sun, 
swallowing  huge  mouthfuls  of  beauty  and  light  in  its 
journey.  But  is  the  light  of  the  sun  only  for  these 
immense  prairies  of  the  West?  Is  it  only  for  mag- 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  131 

nificently  fronting  palaces  of  the  East?  Oh,  no,  the 
generosity  of  the  sun  is  like  the  democracy  of  God.  It 
searches  out  every  kink  and  corner,  every  hole  and 
cobweb,  every  weed  and  worm,  as  well  as  every  pauper 
and  millionaire,  and  says:  "I  am  brother  to  the  Rain. 
As  my  Sister  Rain  falls  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust, 
I  shine  upon  the  evil  and  the  good.  We  are  like  our 
Father  Who  is  in  Heaven."  Oh,  climb  your  Tree  of 
Self-Giving!  You  may  then  see  what  Jesus  is  like. 
He  will  translate  the  magnanimity  of  God  Himself  as 
an  assurance  in  your  own  soul. 


IV 

Finally,  Jesus  is  like  a  new  world.  "And  Jesus  said 
of  him,  To-day  salvation  has  come  to  this  house,  since 
Zaccha3us  here  is  a  son  of  Abraham.  For  the  Son  of 
Man  has  come  to  seek  and  to  save  the  lost."  From 
that  hour  the  tax-gatherer  began  to  live  in  a  new  world. 
That  hard  old  inhuman  world,  with  its  bitterness  and 
scorn  and  contempt,  felt  the  thrill  of  a  transfiguring 
newness  running  through  all  its  veins  and  arteries. 

Now  why  is  Jesus  like  a  new  world  dawning  upon 
the  human  spirit?  Because  he  creates  the  absolute 
condition  of  a  new  spiritual  world — He  makes  the 
human  over ;  He  infuses  the  heart  with  a  sense  of  new 
values  and  appreciations.  Life  is  full  of  such  trans- 
formations in  other  and  lesser  directions.  Think  of 
Keats  the  hour  he  looked  into  Chapman's  Homer. 
Why  did  he  then  write  his  immortal  sonnet?  Simply 
because  Keats  had  experienced  a  literary  rebirth.  Why 
was  Raphael  proud  that  he  lived  in  the  times  of 
Michelangelo?  Because  the  master — "the  greatest 
mind  that  art  ever  inspired,"  said  Ruskin — was  the 


132  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

source  of  an  artistic  regeneration  to  the  younger 
painter.  History  and  life  are  packed  with  these  re- 
juvenations wrought  by  man  on  man,  by  woman  on 
woman.  Yet  it  is  in  Christ  alone  that  this  heavenly 
force  manifests  itself  with  universal  and  redemptive 
splendor  in  society  and  in  the  individual.  "At  the 
Reformation,"  remarked  Goldwin  Smith,  "Greece  rose 
from  the  dead  with  the  Greek  New  Testament  in  her 
hand."  "The  sure  harbinger  of  a  revival  of  religion," 
says  Professor  Glover,  "is  a  revival  of  interest  in  Jesus 
Christ."  What  are  these  two  scholars  saying  but  just 
this:  At  the  Reformation  men  began  to  reconsider 
Jesus,  and  the  graves  of  a  moribund  society  gave  up 
their  dead ;  and  to-day,  as  in  the  past,  if  men  desire  a 
genuine  revival  of  religion,  they  must  have  a  revival 
of  interest  in  Jesus.  He  is  God's  way  with  the  soul ; 
and  is  it  not  a  fact  of  history  to  add  that  He  is  the 
most  effective  way  God  has  yet  disclosed  to  man- 
kind? 

Estimate,  then,  the  value  of  the  new  world  Jesus 
creates  for  two  familiar  human  types  of  our  day — 
the  man  or  woman  whose  goal  is  worldly  success.  Let 
us  assume  that  this  ideal  was  an  inheritance,  a  train- 
ing, or  both.  They  set  out  from  the  cradle  to  capture 
the  so-called  good  things  of  the  world.  And  they  have 
succeeded — some  of  them  beyond  their  wildest  dreams. 
What  then?  Why,  they  discover  that  worldly  success 
is  not  enough;  there  is  an  unsatisfied  hunger  within; 
life  is  expressing  itself  in  tones  of  tragedy — a  wild, 
meaningless  fury,  an  idiot's  tale  all  too  slowly  and  jab- 
beringly  told.  To  exchange  such  a  zone  of  desolation 
for  a  world  full  of  budding  hope  and  noble  vision  and 
creative  faith  is  "a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished."  But  how  is  the  exchange  to  be  made?  By 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  133 

Christ — in  Christ — through  Christ!  He  makes  all 
things  new  by  smiting  the  soul  through  and  through 
with  His  everlasting  newness. 

A  second  type  is  illustrated  in  those  who  think 
change  of  environment  is  all  that  is  required.  Now 
there  is  so  much  hideous,  ugly  environment  which 
ought  to  be  transformed  that  we  should  waste  no  time 
debating  the  subject.  We  must  do  this  work,  and  be 
about  it  now.  And  is  there  not  so  much  of  it  to  be 
done  that  the  task  is  of  almost  overwhelming  dimen- 
sions? And  yet  the  only  method  of  realizing  the  right 
kind  of  a  transformed  environment  is  the  method  of 
Jesus.  "Change  the  soul,"  He  seems  to  say,  "and  the 
changed  soul  will  change  its  setting."  I  do  not  mean 
that  this  is  solely  an  inner,  spiritual  matter ;  it  is  that, 
first  and  foremost,  to  be  sure ;  I  mean  that  a  dean  soul 
will  send  its  cleanliness  soaking  through  things.  On 
the  other  hand,  clean  bodies  with  unclean  souls  exude 
a  moral  filth  that  sullies  the  most  propitious  environ- 
ment. 

Would  you  see  what  the  new  world  Jesus  creates  is 
like?  Climb  the  Fragrant  Tree  of  Holy  Adventure! 
Be  a  spiritual  pioneer!  Prove  your  soul!  Act  as  if 
God  were,  and  you  shall  know  that  He  is!  You,  too, 
are  a  spiritual  son  of  Abraham;  God  is  looking  for 
you.  His  "lost"  child;  Jesus  sees  you  in  that  motley 
multitude — accused  by  your  own  sins,  cudgeled  by  an- 
cestral clubs,  mocked  by  heartless  circumstances,  de- 
ceived by  wealth  and  fame,  and  a  companion  of  haunt- 
ing midnights.  He  sees  you,  my  friend,  even  though 
you  are  too  spiritually  small  to  see  over  the  tops  of 
these  things  to  get  a  satisfying  view  of  Him.  He  is 
waiting  for  the  psychological  moment  when,  in  the 
presence  of  all  opposition,  He  can  invite  you  down 


134  THE  COUNTRY  FAITH 

from  your  sycamore  tree  and  go  Home  with  you — 
Home  together — Home  in  God's  Heart  forevermore! 

Once  there  went  out  from  these  midwestern  prairies 
a  man  who  represented  his  country  in  the  Unifed 
States  Senate.  He  was  the  son  of  a  minister,  like  a 
multitude  of  great  and  holy  men  and  women  through- 
out the  world.  The  old  father  was  visiting  his  son  in 
Washington.  One  evening  the  father  returned  from 
church  just  as  a  diplomat  from  one  of  the  Latin  coun- 
tries was  leaving  his  son's  home.  The  old  minister, 
who  had  been  deeply  stirred  by  the  services,  at  the 
church,  met  them  in  the  hall.  The  Senator  introduced 
his  father  and  the  diplomat  greeted  the  venerable  man 
with  the  urbanity  characteristic  of  his  race.  Without 
a  word  of  warning,  the  father  asked  the  diplomat  in 
almost  stentorian  tones:  "Are  you  a  Christian?"  The 
man  of  the  world  was  thrown  off  his  guard  for  a  mo- 
ment, but  recovering  his  native  politeness,  replied:  "I 
am  a  Catholic."  Gently  placing  his  hand  upon  the 
diplomat's  shoulder,  the  man  of  God  continued: 
"That  is  all  right,  my  brother.  I  do  not  care  whether 
you  are  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant.  How  is  it  with  your 
soul?"  The  diplomat  said  his  good  night  and  returned 
home.  But  the  very  next  day  the  old  preacher  was 
taken  with  his  last  illness.  Every  day  the  diplomat 
called  to  inquire,  leaving  a  bunch  of  flowers.  As  the 
servant  of  God  lay  dead  in  his  casket,  the  statesman 
came  to  the  Senator's  home  and  asked  permission  with 
some  member  of  the  family  to  enter  the  death  cham- 
ber. He  knelt  and  kissed  the  dead  hand,  placed  a 
wreath  upon  the  calm  brow,  and  then  went  out  sob- 
bing like  a  child  as  he  said:  "He  was  the  first  man 
who  ever  asked  me  a  question  about  my  soul." 

Ah,  yes,  in  the  final  examination  it  is  soul,  and  soul 


THE  VISION  SPLENDID  135 

alone,  that  counts.  And  Christ  is  Lord  and  Master 
and  Savior  of  the  soul — of  your  soul,  of  all  souls. 
Have  you  tried  and  failed?  Well,  try  it  again!  And  I 
pray  that  this  golden  admonition  of  a  preacher-poet 
may  help  you : 

I  played  with  my  blocks,  I  was  but  a  child; 
Houses  I  builded,  castles  I  piled; 
But  they  tottered  and  fell,  all  my  labor  was  vain — 
But  my  father  said  kindly,  "We'll  try  it  again!" 

I  played  with  my  days — what's  time  to  a  lad? 
Why  pore  over  books?    Play,  play,  and  be  glad! 
Till  my  youth  was  all  spent  like  a  sweet  summer  rain — 
Yet  my  father  said  kindly,  "We'll  try  it  again!" 

I  played  with  my  chance — such  gifts  as  were  mine 
To  win  with,  to  work  with,  to  serve  the  Divine, 
I  seized  for  myself,  for  myself  they  have  lain — 
But  my  Father  says  kindly,  "We'll  try  it  again!" 

I  played  with  my  soul,  the  soul  that  is  I, 
The  best  that  is  in  me,  I  smothered  its  cry; 
I  lulled  it,  I  dulled  it,  and  now,  O  the  pain! — 
But  my  Father  says  kindly,  "We'll  try  it  again!" 


THERN  REGIONALLIBRARY  FACILITY 


000  022  858     5 


